


Harry Potter and the Military School

by rubarbe9



Series: Harry Potter and the Alternate Schooling [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate schooling, Bullying, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 20:42:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18977995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubarbe9/pseuds/rubarbe9
Summary: Harry and Ron are suspended after their stunt in the flying car at the beginning of the second year. The Dursleys won't hear of their delinquent nephew tumbling his thumbs at home anymore, so they try to send him to Saint Brutus, except the school only takes real delinquents. Harry ends up in a military school where things go pear-shaped because of the hostility of the other students and his accidental magic draws the attention of a Muggle secret military unit.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was betaed by the kind Rachael and Elie. Many thanks to them!

After the mild lecture they had received for their stunt in Mr Weasley's flying car, and the reasonable punishment Professor McGonagall had doled out, Harry and Ron had not expected to be pulled out of their very first class the next day and sent to the Headmaster's office. Still, when a Ravenclaw Prefect came to fetch them in Herbology, they had no choice but to follow.

If a single one of them had been called, they could have thought that the summon was about something entirely different. As it was, it was quite unlikely, and the boys were starting to fear that Professor Snape might have won the case in the end. The bat-like professor had been adamant they deserved expulsion the previous day, and the teenagers had to admit, in retrospect, that their actions had been rather ill-thought. Maybe not enough to deserve expulsion, but they had certainly gotten off lightly with just a detention each.

Their walk back to the castle and up to the Second Floor was filled with nerves and anxiety. Ron was dreading the possibility that his mother might have decided her morning Howler not to be enough and have made the trip to berate him herself. Harry, as for him, could not imagine the Dursleys getting involved in any way with his school life but the fact that he could not fathom what would happen to them in the Headmaster's office did nothing to ease his mind.

When they arrived, the Prefect, a girl by the name of Penelope Clearwater, opened the gargoyle for them by stating the password - Fizzing Whizbee - and gestured for them to step on the revolving stairs. Despite his nerves, Harry was a bit impressed by the room the stairs led to: it was a wide and well-appointed circular space. Portraits of previous heads covered its walls and a table full of smoking, whirring gizmos stood to the side. Opposite to it, a few marble steps led to a delicately decorated wooden cabinet. On a shelf, the boys recognised the Sorting Hat, which looked quite worse for wear when it was not animated. Harry's attention was drawn to a beautiful, regal bird resting on its perch next to the desk. The animal appeared to be on fire, its feathers in mixed shades of red, orange and warm yellow. It thrilled at their entrance before going back to preening itself studiously.

Professor Dumbledore was sat behind his desk, a sombre expression on his face. Professor McGonagall stood at his side and her mouth even more pinched than usual. It was obvious that the two children had not been called here for good news, but Ron was already relaxing slightly at the absence of his parents, probably deeming additional detentions to be more acceptable than a face-to-face telling-off from his guardians.

"My boys, sit down, please."

Both obeyed silently, grabbing a stool each and lowering themselves on them.

"I am afraid that your little adventure of yesterday has had more consequences than expected. Photographs of your travels have circulated in a small-town newspaper and the Obliviators have had to work overtime to contain the damage. As a result, the Ministry is calling for sanctions against you."

The two children blanched at that. If the Ministry was getting involved, it could not mean anything good for them. Ron was especially afraid that his family would get fined outrageously for the possession of the car, while Harry was thinking of the warning he had received that summer when Dobby had used magic at the Dursleys, and of Hagrid who had had his wand snapped when expelled from Hogwarts.

"I have been able to dissuade them from taking too drastic measures, but we have come to the agreement that maybe detentions would not suffice to teach you that your actions have consequences. Therefore, I am suspending you for a month. You will leave your wands with me for safe-keeping and Professor McGonagall will escort you home. She will also collect you when your suspension is over. I trust you will use that time to reflect on what happened and study to keep up with your schoolmates at least on the theoretical side of things."

Suspended! Harry was devastated. An additional month at the Dursleys, when they expected to be rid of him for the full school year, was going to be hell. And this time there would be no Weasleys in a flying car to save him if his relatives decided to lock him in his room and forget all about him.

Ron was obviously thinking along the same line of thoughts because he started to plead to the Headmaster:

"Could Harry home with me, please? His guardians are going to be absolutely angry about him being back and I'm sure my parents would not mind."

"I'm afraid it isn't a matter of your parents agreeing in this case, Mister Weasley. This is not a holiday and a suspension has to be spent at one's home. In addition to this, I doubt your parents will be any happier than the Dursleys about your suspension. While your loyalty to your friend is commendable, maybe you should focus on your own situation for the moment? I am sure Mister Potter will be fine once his guardians have lectured him for his bad choices, just like you will be."

"But, sir, you don't know..."

"This is not up for discussion, Mister Weasley. Now, the house elves should have brought your things to the Entrance Hall, so it is time for you to leave. Professor McGonagall will take care of explaining things to your respective guardians. Please hand over your wands. I promise I will take good care of them."

With terribly heavy hearts, the young boys complied and placed the precious pieces of wood in the extended hand of the Headmaster, who deposited them into a rectangular case made of cherry wood and proceeded to lock the box away in a drawer of his desk.

"Thank you. It is time for you to go now. I will see you in a month."

With that curt dismissal, Professor McGonagall started moving and ushered them out of the office and into the hallway. Harry followed meekly, a bit shell-shocked by this last turn of events. He had felt hope at his friend's intervention but he now knew that there was no escaping the situation and that he would have to suffer the Dursleys' tender care for another month. All because of one stupid decision on his part.

Their trunks were waiting for them in the Entrance Hall, as predicted by Professor Dumbledore. Their Transfiguration professor wasted no time in shrinking them with a flourish of her wand and pocketed them, assuring Harry that she would unshrink his before leaving his relatives' place, as they could not do it themselves.

Harry, who felt a little piece of himself die when he crossed the door to go outside, did not even react to the horse-less carriage sitting just before them. What did it matter what magic could accomplish when the magical world was kicking him out? He had thought he had finally found a home in Hogwarts but it was now taken away from him, just like any good thing that had happened to him before.

Despite the fact that the carriage was heated, he felt colder and colder as they rode the path to Hogsmeade. Would they take the train, he wondered? Or would they Floo to the Leaky Cauldron? In either case, how would they travel from London to Surrey and Devon? Would they go to Ottery St Catchpole first, so Harry would not have to suffer through the humiliation of his friend hearing the abuse the Dursleys were sure to heap on him the moment he showed up at their door?

Harry's bleak train of thoughts was interrupted when the carriage stopped well before they had reached Hogsmeade. In fact, they were barely out of the gates when it came to a stop and Professor McGonagall signalled for them to climb down. A split second, Harry feared that she would just abandon them here, in the Scottish countryside without a wand or a mean to contact anyone, barring them entry to the castle. It was silly, of course, as Professor Dumbledore himself had assured them that she would take them back to their relatives' houses to explain the situation, but he only relaxed when she grabbed their arms and warned him:

"We are going to Apparate, Mister Potter. It is a common mean of transportation for adult wizards but it can be a bit unpleasant for passengers. Hold on and do not let go."

With that said, she took a breath and the next thing Harry knew, everything had gone black and he felt pressure from every side. Breathing was increasingly difficult as a lofty weight seemed to constrict his chest. His eyes and ears hurt from the strain and he felt as if his guts were trying to come out the wrong way. As suddenly as they started, the sensations ended, leaving him heavily disoriented and retching. He felt the professor let go of his arm but thankfully she gave him a few seconds to compose himself before moving.

When the ground stopped moving and all his organs appeared to have settled back into their rightful place, Harry looked up to realise that they were in a dark back alley he knew very well from having hidden there multiple times to try and escape his cousin. At least the bully would not be there to make Harry's suspension more miserable than it was already going to be.

Seeing that he had regained his bearings, Professor McGonagall taped each of them with her wand, as well as herself, transfiguring their clothing into a combination of shirts and slacks that were much more appropriate for the Muggle world. She then strode toward the main street, obviously expecting them to follow.

Privet Drive was as pristine and uninteresting as it had been when Harry had left it a month prior. The cookie-cutter houses were still lined up perfectly, their flowers tended to and their grass cut to a T. Considering the time of the day, no cars were waiting, shining, in the driveways. It made Harry realise that he probably would not have to deal with his uncle until the evening. Thank Merlin for small mercies, his aunt was far less likely to call him names in front of visitors, even if they were despised wizards and witches, so he would be able to save face in front of Ron.

Trudging after their Transfiguration professor, the boys reached Number 4, Privet Drive in no time. She knocked on the door and they all waited as footsteps could be heard hurrying from inside the house. Petunia Dursley opened the door and immediately made a disgusted face at his presence.

"I thought we were done with you for the year! Does this have to do with the letter we received yesterday? We already told you people that we wanted nothing to do with _that_ school!"

Unphased, their teacher retorted:

"Maybe you could invite use inside? Unless you want us to have this discussion on your doorstep, of course."

Petunia scowled in a way that would have made Professor Snape proud but she opened the door wider and stepped aside to let them in. She turned on them as soon as she closed the door, not even directing them to the living room, and demanded to know what they were doing there.

"As stated in the letter the Headmaster sent you, Mr Potter and Mr Weasley here have broken the Statute of Secrecy yesterday. As a result, it has been decided that they will be suspended from Hogwarts for a month. They are of course forbidden from practising magic during that time, so their wands have remained at the school. I will be coming to fetch Mr Potter in a month's time, before breakfast. Do you have any questions?"

"Suspended? Can't you people force him on someone else? We already do our duty during the summer, surely you don't expect us to accommodate him as so little notice, especially now that it's been proven that he is a delinquent!"

"Yes, madam, I expect you to do exactly that. Now, if you don't have any questions, I will be on my way. I still have to deliver Mister Weasley back to his parents before my next class. I bid you a good day. Mister Potter."

She inclined her head to him and turned around to leave, before remembering that she still had his trunk. Without wasting time, she took it out of her pocket and set it done, enlarging it with another non-verbal spell. She then strode toward the door, taking Ron with her and leaving Harry alone with his aunt.

"Well, you are you standing here for, boy? Since you're such a handful that even that freak school of yours don't want anything to do with you anymore, you might as well make yourself useful here! Stick that trunk in your cupboard and get to work in the garden!"

Harry recoiled at the shrill, angry tone of her voice, already wishing he was anywhere but back at his relatives. He knew better than to complain, however, especially since he had no one but himself to blame for the situation, so he grabbed his trunk and trudged to his cupboard, dragging it loudly behind him. It was a bit of a challenge to make it fit in the restricted space but Harry finally managed to squeeze it in.

He made his way to the garden. He grabbed a pair of protective gloves from the shed at the back and knelt in front of the first bush he came to. His aunt had not given him any specific instruction so he elected to start with his less detested outdoor task, weeding the flower beds. He knew that she would have time to order him to do all sort of things until the month was up but he figured there was no reason to make it any more unpleasant for himself than strictly necessary.

The rest of the morning went by quickly and he was given a cold turkey sandwich for lunch before being commanded to mow the grass and clear the gutters. He complied, aware that by now the neighbouring housewives would have realised something was amiss in the Dursleys' household and were most probably starting at him working through their curtains. He already had the reputation of a miscreant and small-time delinquent, so their guesses as to why he was back so soon after the beginning of the school year probably would not be too far off from the truth. Though with the lies Vernon had spread about him going to St Brutus, they were most likely imaging he had committed murder or something of that level to have been kicked out of the penitentiary school. None of them would be anywhere close to guessing he had flown a car to school. The thought of explaining the reason for his suspension to any of the stuck-up women Aunt Petunia often had for tea drew a small giggle from Harry. They would choke on their scones!

As the day unfolded and the time for Vernon to come home was drawing closer, Harry was beginning to feel more and more apprehensive. The man was due to be highly unhappy, not to say furious, about his presence, and Harry would be lucky if he did not end up locked up in his room for the duration of his suspension with only scraps to eat and two bathroom breaks a day, as had been the case before the twins and Ron had rescued him during the summer. While they were tedious, Harry still preferred to perform chores around the house than being bored out of his mind. And Dumbledore expected him to keep up with his studies? How was he supposed to do that when all of his magical things were locked in the cupboard under the stairs? At least Hedwig had stayed at Hogwarts so he would not have to worry about Vernon taking his rage out on her.

All too soon, Petunia called him in to cook dinner -a roast with green beans and gravy. He was taking the meat out of the oven when he heard the telltale screeching of tires on gravel, followed by the slamming of the car door. He considered scampering upstairs before his uncle came in, leaving his aunt to break the news to Vernon, but it was too late, as the front door opened and closed. Petunia hurried to her husband side to take his coat and simper at him. From the booming voice that resonated from the hallway, the despicable man was in a good mood. It, of course, did not last long when he caught sight of Harry through the kitchen door.

"What is he doing here?"

"The idiot boy was suspended for a month! But don't worry, lamb, I will keep him out of your way."

She threw a glare at Harry and make a shooing gesture at him.

"Set the meal on the table, boy, and go to your room."

Sensing that he would not get anything to eat tonight, but glad to have -for now- apparently avoided Vernon's wrath, Harry hurried to put the roast and its sides on the table that he had already set and scurried upstairs under the hateful eyes of his uncle.

* * *

A few days went by with nothing of particular interest happening. He carried out his chores, stayed out of his uncle's way and mourned Hogwarts and its magic. The routine of it all lulled him into a false sense of security, so he did not think much of it when Vernon came home from work on Tuesday whistling and looking extremely proud of himself.

The next morning, Harry was woken up by the heavy pounding of his uncle's fist on his bedroom door. He scrambled to stand up and put on his clothes -the Transfigured ones from the previous day as the rest of his possessions were locked in the cupboard downstairs- as Vernon's roaring voice complained about him taking too long.

He opened the door to face the massive form of his uncle, whose protuberant vein on his forehead had started to stick out even more from the screaming.

"Get your lazy bones downstairs, boy, and get in the car. If your freak school doesn't want you anymore, then I'll find you another one more suitable for your kind!"

Harry hesitated one second too long because Vernon grabbed him and propelled him toward the stairs. What did he mean another school? Surely Petunia had explained to him that he was only suspended, not expelled and that he would be able to go back to Hogwarts in a month?

He tried to voice his protests on his way down the stairs but only got his head cuffed for his troubles. Before he had time to really process what was happening, he was seated in the back of Vernon's car and his uncle was starting the engine.

Harry did not dare to say a single thing as they drove on Surrey's roads to an unknown destination. The trip took a good hour and ended in front of an iron-wrought gate, not unlike Hogwarts'. St Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys, claimed the austere sign on the stone pillar next to the gate. On his car seat, Harry was frozen in fear. His uncle would not dare, would he?

Apparently, he dared, as Vernon had gotten out of the car and was speaking with someone on the intercom below the ominous sign. The conversation was dragging out, Vernon becoming more and more upset and his gestures animated as whoever was behind the entryphone refused to let them in. In the end, the person relented and the rotund man stormed back to the car. He drove brusquely on his way to the main building, a squat manor sat in the middle of more recent barracks and prefabs.

They left the car in the miserable parking lot in front of a barbed fence that closely enclosed the buildings and moved toward the entrance shack. A burly man listlessly buzzed them in and informed them that they had to leave any cigarettes, alcohol and weapons they might be carrying with him before they could proceed. Vernon pushed a very reluctant Harry in front of him to the main building where a tall, spindly man in a brown suit came to meet them.

"Mister..."

"Dursley, Vernon Dursley. I apologise for dropping in unannounced, but I would like to enrol my nephew in your school as quickly as possible."

"Mister Dursley, I understand your request but I'm afraid we won't be able to fulfil your wishes. This is a penitentiary establishment. We only receive students who have been referred to us by the judiciary system, as part of their sentencing. We cannot accept students on the basis of the guardians' will."

"But he is a delinquent! He was suspended from his previous school because he stole a car!"

"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to turn you down. You might want to try the Monmouth Academy. It sits in Wales but they have wonderful results with tougher kids."

Grumbling, Vernon thanked the director of St Brutus and grabbed Harry by the scruff to march him back to the car, as if it was his fault that St Brutus only accepted pupils on a judge's recommendation. Once in the vehicle, he started a long rant on the decline of public service and on the unfairness of having to deal with his good-for-nothing charge because the freaks had not seen it necessary to prosecute him for him to get punished through the proper means. Harry did not get his hopes up for even a moment, though, because his uncle made it clear that he would call this Monmouth Academy as soon as they got home. He also, of course, blamed him for the leave day he had been forced to take to bring Harry to St Brutus, for nothing. As a result, the drive home was highly unpleasant and Harry feared several times that they would leave the road or crash into another car as Vernon often turned around to better berate him. They made it back in one piece, however, and Harry was locked in his room for the rest of the day, his stomach grumbling at having already skipped two meals.

The evening brought news and half a plateful of food as Petunia let him out to clean up after their dinner and eat something.

"Boy! You are leaving tomorrow for Monmouth Academy! Be thankful that they accepted your late registration and that it doesn't cost a thing, or I would have dumped you in the streets for good!"

Harry said nothing, knowing there was no changing the mind of his gleeful uncle. He silently tidied the remains of their meal and gulped down his food standing in the kitchen, away from his relatives' eyes, already planning how he was going to write to Hermione's parents -good thing he had memorised their address during the summer- to beg them to contact Hogwarts. Surely Dumbledore would intervene, even if he was still suspended, if his relatives sent him away. After all, it was he who had claimed that Harry could not go to the Burrow because he needed to stay with his guardians.


	2. Chapter 2

Apparently, Vernon could not take an unexpected leave two days in a row, or he trusted his wife to get his nephew to school now that the negotiating part had been done, because he left for work the next morning, leaving Harry and Petunia alone after breakfast. She had Harry unearth his trunk from the cupboard and sort out his Muggle clothes so he would have more than the garments on his back to bring to his new school. They had informed Vernon that they provided a uniform but stated that casual clothing was allowed during the weekend, so students were supposed to have at least a few sets of shirts and trousers to their name.

It was not even nine when they climbed into the car and set out for the long trip, nearly four hours according to Petunia, toward the school. His aunt not being the most generous conversationalist, Harry tried to fall back asleep but his dreams where polluted by imaginary schools where caning was still common and students were hung by their ankles to the walls of the dungeons by the caretaker. He wavered in and out of sleep for a good hour until he decided he had better stay awake if he did not want to arrive at this new place shivering in terror.

Unlike St Brutus, Monmouth Academy was not encompassed by any fence or barrier but was sitting in the middle of a lush forest, far away from the closest village. It was composed of three long two-level buildings arranged together in a U-shape around a paved courtyard. No students could be seen outside but Harry caught sight of rows of shaved heads sitting inside a classroom through a window.

A strict-looking woman in a military uniform met them at the entrance of the central building.

"Welcome, Missus Dursley, Mister Potter. I am Lieutenant Moss, the Deputy Head. If you would follow me."

She led them inside the building and to a small, serviceable office where she offered them a chair.

"I understand that you wish to enrol your nephew in our school, Missus Dursley, am I right."

Petunia nodded vigorously, as if afraid that if she did not show the proper enthusiasm, they would refuse Harry. Lieutenant Moss gave her a cold, empty smile and gathered a package of documents from a drawer of her desk, handing it to Harry's aunt.

"Please take your time to look at these and sign at the appropriate spots. I will also need his file from his previous school."

In exchange for the bundle of paperwork, Petunia dug out a red folder from her bag and passed it to the other woman.

"Last year is missing, his school did not believe in reports and transcripts. Some New Age reformative nonsense that we were naive enough to believe might bring him back on the right path."

"I understand. We often accept students who have been out of school for various reasons, so it won't be a problem to organise a placement test for him."

Petunia nodded gratefully and started to fill out the multiple sheets in front of her. In the meantime, Harry was left to peer around the office and try not tç stare at the Lieutenant, who reminded him painfully of Professor McGonagall in the strict way she held herself. In reality, the differences between the two women were much more striking than their similarities but Harry was already starting to feel nostalgic about all things Hogwarts.

Once the Deputy Head had finished skimming through his meagre scholarly file, she picked up the phone resting on her desk and dialled a number too short to be anything but an internal call. She waited for the line to connect for a few seconds, then requested in short, to-the-point sentences for a placement test to be organised for Harry that afternoon. When she hung up, his aunt was still working her way through the forms and an uncomfortable -for Harry at least- silence settled over the room.

By the time Petunia was done, a bell had rung across the school and a mass of students had spilt into the courtyard for what appeared to be, from what Harry could hear, a physical training session. It was soon over and the rumbling of the pupils disappeared yet again, probably as they went to get lunch, as the clock to the side of the room indicated that it was already half past noon. Harry could feel his stomach grumble quietly but thankfully it did not make any inappropriate noise, which would have been extremely embarrassing.

Finally, his frigid relative set her pen down and slid the paperwork back to the Lieutenant over the desk. The woman accepted the batch and after giving it a cursory leafing-through, she stood up and offered her hand to shake to Harry's aunt.

"Thank you for your trust. Would you like to visit the school before you leave?"

Petunia shook her head as she gave her answer.

"No, that won't be necessary, thank you for the offer. I believe him to be in good hands, and I have a long trip back home. Should we go back to my car so he can collect his bag?"

"Certainly."

Again, the Lieutenant led the way, Harry trailing despondently behind the two women. All too soon, he was standing in the bleak September sun with his duffle bag in hand, looking at the retreating form of his aunt's car as she drove away, abandoning him to this unfamiliar, unwelcoming place.

Luckily, the Deputy Head of his new school -for only a few short days he hoped- did not give him time to indulge in his dark thoughts as she immediately called for his attention.

"You may leave your personal effects here in the courtyard, Recruit. I will show you to the canteen where you will take your lunch with the others. Remain there when you are done, someone will come to fetch you to take you to the placement test."

He followed her to the central building again, except this time they did not go up the stairs but remained on the ground floor, immediately entering a wide refectory. The sea of uniforms and unknown faces there almost had Harry take a step back but he steeled himself and doggedly stuck to Lieutenant Moss as she marched toward a table where there was a free spot. As she stopped, she addressed the group of teenagers already sitting at the table.

"Recruits, this is Recruit Potter. He will be joining you for lunch."

With that, she left him to the wolves and departed the room.

All eyes were on Harry as he timidly pulled his chair and cursed Mr Weasley's flying car to hell in his mind. All the students at his table were much older than him, and much bulkier, so when someone passed him the dish of cold meat and mashed potatoes with a disdainful: "Far too scrawny to waste any food on," he was not even that surprised.

He gulped down his food in silence, trying to ignore the mostly hostile looks he was receiving. The ignoring became far more difficult after he had cleared his plate and he was left looking at his hands, trying his hardest not to bolt and run to the door. It was even worse than his first meal at Hogwarts because at least then he had had the novelty of magic to distract him as well as the wondrous food, and some people had been genuinely happy when he had joined Gryffindor, even if it was because he was the Boy-Who-Lived.

A second bell rung, liberating him from his very unpleasant situation by sending the other students marching through two double doors at the end of the room which led directly to the courtyard, unlike the smaller one Harry had come through before. He was nevertheless not left alone, as a dozen students remained and started to gather the used utensils and the empty dishes, bringing them back to huge trays to the side of the room. Harry wondered if chores were part of daily life there or if they were a punishment. He did not doubt that he would be quickly informed of it by whoever was going to give him his schedule, probably after he had taken the placement test.

He did not have to wait for long after the bell before a short, muscular man showed up, introducing himself as Second Lieutenant Bothwell and mathematics teacher and ordering Harry -who he also called Recruit Potter- to follow him.

They ended up in a small, bland room on the ground floor of one of the branches of the U-shape encircling the courtyard, where the professor had Harry sit down in front of a thick bundle of papers.

"You have two hours to complete as much of it as possible. The exercises are ordered by year. Start with the year you are supposed to be at and go from there. If the tasks are too difficult, go down as many years as necessary for you to feel comfortable answering at least half of the questions. Your time starts now."

Harry opened the booklet to the section corresponding to his age-class but quickly found himself floundering. The first few questions were about History and Geography, except he had never heard of the concepts they asked about. Mathematics was even worse, as he could not remember anything from his geometry classes in primary school. He had never been the best of students, as his relatives did not tolerate him doing better than their precious Dudley, but it was obvious that even one year out of the normal system had completely thrown him out of the loop, and he was worried he was going to completely embarrass himself.

In the end, he had to go back to Year 5 of Primary School before he could accomplish the set task of answering more than half of the questions correctly. He had to leave behind everything that required memorisation, as he could not even recall the list of the English Counties, but what was more logic and reflexion he could deal with. He managed to fill quite a few questions in Year 6, too, but the Secondary-level tests were clearly far too advanced for him. He felt humiliated. Not only were his relatives painting him as a delinquent, but now he would also pass as a lazy, stupid kid. Maybe those people would even send him home, as he could not imagine them catering to Primary School pupils. All the children he had seen in the canteen had been at least eleven.

When his two hours were up, Second Lieutenant Bothwell collected his pile of sheets and commanded him to sit still while he corrected it.

After ten minutes, Harry was blushing heavily as he knew it would be obvious already how behind he was, and he wished more than anything for the papers to disappear. As he closed his eyes to stop looking at the object of his humiliation, a crashing noise resounded in the room and Harry shivered in the following powerful gust of wind. He immediately opened his eyes again, to find the window wide open and the sheets of his test spread across the room, quite of few of them escaping by the window and into the courtyard. The professor was starting at the window, obviously as surprised as Harry by the events.

After a few seconds, the Second Lieutenant seemed to regain his mind as he started to gather the remaining papers and barked at Harry to make himself useful and go collect those which had landed in the courtyard. He took the time to warn him not to try anything funny and to come back in the room promptly, proof that his relatives' words on him had already spread among the teaching body.

In the courtyard, the wind seemed to have abated as Harry did not have any trouble grasping the sheets, to his sadness. He was left wondering about the window and the subsequent breeze, hypothesising that maybe the window had not been latched properly? But in reality, he knew that there was a high probability for it to be a result of his accidental magic: how likely was it for him to wish to make the papers disappear and for a gust of wind to blast through the window at this exact moment? For a moment, he hoped that it meant the Ministry would localise him and come to berate him about his use of magic in front of Muggles until he realised that they had never done so for his multiple occurrences of accidental magic in the past. Probably, they could only track magic that was cast in the proximity of a wand. Which led Harry back to his vow to write the Grangers as soon as possible so they could warn Dumbledore about his relatives' new resolution.

He entered back the small testing room with his messy leaf of sheets and handed them out to the teacher, who was not sitting behind the desk anymore but had waited for him standing in front of the door.

"I have seen enough. We will start you in Remedial Class, and maybe in a few months, you will be able to move to Year 1. Follow me."

Without explaining where they were going or paying any attention to Harry's burning cheeks -Remedial Class!- Second Lieutenant Bothwell strode out of the room and led them back to the central building. He had Harry collect his bag on the way, stating that he would show his the dorms afterwards. They walked into what looked like a laundry room, with multiple machines and wide shelves full of uniforms. The adult gave him an appraising look before grabbing a couple uniforms from the second to last pile on the shelves.

"Hopefully, you will grow into them fast. If they are really too big, ask the Recruit in charge of your dorm for the smallest size."

Harry looked at the clothes in his hands, perfect replicas of the uniforms he had seen the other students into. The khaki green garments were a simple shirt and slacks, accompanied by a rudimentary leather belt. A pair of sturdy, sensible work shoes soon joined the pile in his arms and once again they were off, to a dormitory on the upper level of one of the side buildings -the left one if one was looking at them from the courtyard. The room was a large, open space lined with neatly-made beds with closed trunks at their feet. Not a thing appeared to be out of line, everything was set with military precision. At first glance, Harry estimated that roughly thirty students must be sleeping there. For once providing information, the Second Lieutenant informed him that this was one of the four dorms of the school, shared by the younger years. He indicated a bed a few beds away from what was to be Harry's.

"This is Recruit Ashton's, he is also in Remedial Class. Shadow him until you don't get lost anymore, not knowing your surroundings is not an excuse for tardiness here. There are two hours left of class, change and I will take you there. Your roommates will lend you material to get your hair at regulation length later."

Harry nodded and waited for the man to clear the room so he could change, but the professor kept his rigid stance in front of the bed, waiting. Sensing that he would not get any privacy, Harry stripped down to his boxers and socks as quickly as possible and donned the provided uniform, frowning at the chafing material. The clothes were indeed slightly too big for him but not so much that he would need to ask for a smaller uniform, he was used to wearing Dudley's oversized cast-offs. As for the shoes, they fit him perfectly and were more comfortable than Hogwarts standard formal shoes. He could envision himself running and jumping in those new shoes, which he had no doubt would happen in what he had started to guess was a military school.

Clad in his new, itchy clothing, he yet again fell into step after the Second Lieutenant, who led him downstairs to a sober, strict-looking classroom. The room was not very large, barely housing the dozen individual wooden desks and the larger, more imposing one for the teacher. The white-washed walls were covered in education posters -mostly grammar and geography- that would not have appeared out of place in a pre-war classroom. In particular, Harry's eyes focussed on the one sitting next to the blackboard, listing the rules of the classroom: to address all adults by their title, to stand up when an adult entered the class, to stand up when addressed, to never speak unless spoken to...

As stated in those rules, the ten or so students present all rose as one when they entered the room, taking a formal stance with their feet locked together and their arms straight at their sides. Harry had to admit that the effect was impressive but at the moment he wanted nothing more than to go back home, even if home at the moment would mean the Dursleys'.

"At ease."

Together, the teenagers -for apart from a single student Harry guessed was Ashton all the pupils there were at least thirteen- all moved their feet slightly apart and settled with their hands behind their back. The coordinated moves did nothing to ease Harry's anxiety, only making feel that he did not belong. At least this time there was none of the hostile glares from lunch, as the students were all looking straight at the adult next to him, waiting for the next order or the information he had come to deliver.

"Recruit Potter has just joined our ranks. Recruit Ashton, you are in charge of orientation."

The youngest of the lot, whom Harry had correctly guessed was the previously evoked Ashton, answered with a loud and clear "Yes, sir" that almost had Harry jump in his new shoes. Satisfied, Second Lieutenant Bothwell pointed Harry to an empty seat in the last line of desks and left the room.

The teacher, a squat woman with a hint of a moustache shadowing her face, waited until Harry had reached the designated desk and tried to awkwardly copy the position of his neighbour to order them to sit down and pick up their works. Even if they were only ten of them, the noise they made as they simultaneously dragged their chairs and sat down left Harry cringing.

The professor did not waste any time as she pulled a package of books from the metallic storage cabinet at the cabinet, along with a notebook and a set of two carbon pencils, a sharpener and an eraser, and deposited the lot on Harry's new desk.

"I am Corporal Cadson, your English teacher. You may address me as _Corporal_ or _Ma'am_. We are currently studying irregular present tense verbs, green book, page seventeen. Copy the lesson and complete the activities. _In silence_. Whatever you do not have time to finish before the end of the day you are expected to complete during Study Hall in the evening. Proceed."

Harry was starting to wonder if anyone there would be anything but brusque and strict. Sighing internally, he figured that he should comply for the moment, until he could write to Hermione's parents. He grabbed the aforementioned green book from the pile and opened it to the right page. The lesson seemed simple enough, stuff he had known for years, but that was the price he had to pay for completely failing the placement test. At least he had not forgotten his English during his stay at Hogwarts, and he breezed through the exercises. He was nearly finished when the bell rung, signalling the end of the period. He followed the lead of his classmates and stuck his books and everything with it inside the old-fashioned desks and looked at Ashton, hoping that he would enlighten him as to what would happen next.

But the other child did not even look at him as they vacated the classroom, leaving Harry to scramble behind him. They all made their way to the courtyard, where they stood in line -again in that formal position that Harry thought he remembered from movies watched in secret from the hallway at the Dursleys- with the entire student body, awaiting the instructions of a tall, muscular man who would not have been out of place in a Rambo movie.

"All right you all. Ten laps, with forty push-ups for those who don't complete it before time's up. Go, go, go."

Harry reluctantly followed the group as they started running out of the courtyard and down a path that led into the forest. Luckily, he had some experience running away from Dudley and Quidditch had helped him keep his form up the previous year. Ten laps of whatever distance they had to run before dinner should be within his reach.

Obviously, Harry had underestimated the amount of training the other students had under their belt and the amount of ground they would have to cover because he soon fell behind with a bunch of other kids he guessed were first years. When the bell rung for dinner in the distance, he had completed eight of the required ten laps. He considered lying and claiming he had done them but just as he toyed with the thought, entering the courtyard, Ashton materialised at his shoulder and spat:

"Don't even think about it. They monitor the runs so they'll know, and as I'm in charge of you it'll be on my head."

Harry nearly groaned in disappointment but contained himself at the last moment.

"Thank you for warning me. Should I do the push-ups now or do we have to go to dinner first?"

He was sweaty and really hoping for a shower, but since he saw no one entering the side buildings containing the dormitories, all heading for the central canteen instead, he guessed that was not on the program.

"Dinner now, then chores, Study Hall and then punishments. Try not to get any more, forty push-ups are going to be long enough for you to complete as it is, and I'll have to wait for you to show you around afterwards."

"Okay. What kind of chores are we doing?"

"There's a rotation. Today is the classrooms. Tomorrow we're cleaning after the meals. Now get lost."

Surprised at the other boy's antagonism, Harry missed his opportunity to thank him for the information before Ashton marched away to sit at a table far from Harry. Surveying the refectory for a free seat, the wizard realised that it was already full and almost no open spot remained. He found one at a table with most the younger students who had been running behind with him and decided to try his luck with them.

"Mind if I sit here?"

They exchanged wary looks that seemed out of place to Harry: after all, what was he going to do, eat them? Finally, one that appeared to be slightly less timid than the others nodded to him. He sat down and waited for the dishes to arrive at their table, rice with pork in a creamy sauce. He served himself last, aware that he was not really welcome. He felt like an undesirable outsider, which might not have been surprising considering how little time at elapsed since he had arrived, but still stung. His usual experience was that people were willing to make friends with him when they first met, until Dudley arrived and ruined it anyway, so he was floundering as to why everybody here was so hostile. As the meal went on, he realised that maybe he was not the problem. No one at his table spoke, all apparently very concerned with their own plates, as if they were scared of one another. It might have been just nerves from being at a new, unfamiliar place though, he could see animated discussions taking place at other tables. There was even another table with young students who looked like first years where the conversation was flowing and laughs and jokes were exchanged. So he might have just picked the table of shy, scared firsties.

While eating in silence, he noticed that only a single adult was present in the room, one that he had not yet encountered. It was quite different from Hogwarts, where all the teachers were required to eat at the Head Table. It seemed a bit risky to have only one person supervise a hundred or so students, but maybe they were all so roped into good behaviour by the militaristic aspect of the school that even a symbolic presence was enough to keep them from misbehaving.

As he had that thought, a hand appeared from behind him and plucked his yoghourt from his hands.

"Hey!"

He turned around to complain but was faced with a massive teenager who was smirking at him.

"Problem, fresh meat?"

Harry's mouth opened and closed several times before he did the reasonable thing and shook his head in silence. As he turned back to face his now empty plate, he realised that most of his tablemates had also been divested of their dessert by the older, stronger boys of the neighbouring tables. From their resigned expression, it must not have been the first occurrence. A glance at the adult stationed near the doors revealed that he was still surveying the room. There was no telling whether he had not seen what had happened or whether he had but could not care less.

Since he was, due to the circumstances, done with his dinner, Harry was one of the first to stand up when the bell rang to signal the end of the meal, seeking out Ashton in the hope that he would direct him to whatever cleaning they were supposed to do.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry found the short, tetchy boy, and followed his steps back to the classroom. An older student was bringing a bunch of cleaning supplies from the hall and he was handed a rag with a bottle a window cleaner without a word. The mutism that so many pupils there seemed to favour drew a frown to Harry's face. Could they not spare a few polite words when they interacted with him? Unwilling to conform to their rude ways, Harry made a point of thanking the other boy before making for the windows.

He had to pull a chair to stand on to reach the top but was soon relaxing into the familiar task of polishing glass. It was a chore his aunt had always abhorred above all so he had been trained to complete it from younger than was probably reasonable. The cold of the evening seeped in when he opened the panels to clean the outside of the windows, drawing a shiver out of him. He had not received any sweater or coat with his uniform, making him wonder if they would be provided later as the weather deteriorated or if the students were just expected to cope in their thick cotton shirts. Surely they would not have they run in the cold winter rain, or even worse, snow, in just these light uniforms...

He was done before the bell, so he put down his supplies and surveyed the others around him. They were mostly done too, two of them setting the chairs back down on the ground from the desks they had perched them on to sweep the floor. Harry moved to help them but was rebuffed by an animalistic growl from the beefiest of the pair. Slightly stricken by the antagonistic behaviour but unwilling to step on anyone's toes on his first day, he let it go and stood to the side where the rest of their group was waiting. He took the opportunity to ask his most important question to Ashton: even if the boy had not been particularly forthcoming, he had not shunned specific questions, so it was worth a try.

"How do we send mail from here?"

"There's a box in the hallway outside the canteen. Mail is collected once a week."

"Thanks."

Once a week was not a lot, but Harry determinedly told himself that he could endure a week, even in this apparently hostile environment. After all, he was used to the bordeline abusive habits of the Dursleys, and he had survived the taunts of Snape and his Slytherins the previous year, not to mention his encounter with a terrifying Dark Lord -diminished as he had been. However, he nearly groaned in distress when he realised he had neither envelop nor stamp to send his letter. Neither did he have sweets or other trinkets to trade for them. He would have to plead with the Head Deputy and hope she would take pity of him, though that did not seem to be very likely.

He was dragged from his planning by the sound of the bell -how many times a day did the damned thing rung? Around him, the rest of the class was moving next to their assigned desk and standing there, waiting for the professor to join them. Harry scrambled to copy them, still unsure of his posture but feeling like he was doing a rather good job overall since no one had taken the time to give him any instruction.

However, it did not appear to be the teacher's opinion: the same man who had been overwatching the refectory zeroed in on him as soon as he entered the classroom and barked:

"What is that sloppy position, Recruit!"

As Harry started to apologise, he was immediately cut off by another yell.

"I don't care! Twenty squats for you and whoever is supposed to teach you. And this position'd better be perfect by tomorrow!"

In front of him, Ashton tensed up. Harry could feel his eyes get wet from the unfairness of it all. Even if his designed mentor had been willing to teach him, which he obviously was not, when would they have had the time to go over what positions were expected of him? Their time had been filled with one task after another since he had joined the class!

"At ease! Take your seat!"

Shouting seemed to be the only way the newcomer knew of communicating, as he barked order after order at them. Still shaken, Harry took out his book and notebook out of the innards of his desk and set out to complete the few exercises he had left from the afternoon while doing his best not to sniffle and look like a crybaby in front of his classmates. When he was done, he tore a piece of paper from the notebook and started composing his letter to the Grangers.

"Recruit Potter!"

Harry jumped in his seat in surprise, both at being addressed so suddenly and at the fact that the yelling teacher knew his name.

"Yes, sir?"

"What do you think you are doing, destroying school supplies?"

He shrank in his seat, aware that he had probably made a severe mistake.

"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't think..."

"No one asked you to think! Add twenty squats to your tally, and you'd better get back to work!"

Definitely tearing up this time, Harry abandoned the lonely piece of paper on a corner of his desk and opened back his English book. Not sure what to do, he figured that there could be no harm in completing the series of exercise for the next lesson. The boring task of copying absurd sentences while filling in pronouns where specified helped him get his emotions under control, but not before a single tear and escaped him and muddled the ink on the page. Why was he so sensitive tonight? He had always been more prone to anger before when wronged, and even Snape had never drawn tears from him. Sure, in Hogwarts he had his friends to support him and talk with behind the Potion Master's back, but surely loneliness could not be affecting him so much...

Finally, Study Hall was over and they were freed from the barking, intransigeant man. This time, the group of students did not move as one but split into two groups: Harry, Ashton and a third older student joined the small group forming in the courtyard while the rest went up to the dormitories.

"Start your push-ups, I don't want to be here all night!"

As he did not want to antagonise him any further, Harry obeyed Ashton's grumbled order without a word.

Forty push-ups were a lot. Harry had stopped at some point to complete a series of squats and give his arms time to rest, but by the time he had completed them -which took him at least fifteen minutes- Harry was sweating and breathing like he had run a marathon. He still had twenty squats to do, though, so he only took a moment to try and catch his breath a little before he went back to work under the hateful eyes of Ashton, who had finished his punishment before Harry had even had time to realise what he was doing.

Even the most rigorous of Quidditch training had never felt as exhausting as this day. Between the stress, the running and lastly this punishment, Harry was more than ready to turn in, after a hot shower of course. It was not to be, however, as Ashton was far from done with him.

"Let's work on your positions while we are out there. Attention position!"

Harry stared at him blankly, unsure what he was supposed to do. Annoyed, the boy demonstrated the formal position he had seen the students reproduce all day. Harry scrambled to copy him, bringing his feet together and letting his arms rest at his side.

"No, you are doing it wrong! Chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in! Open your feet a bit, so your heels are together but your toes are apart. Make a fist but let your thumbs rest parallel to the seam of your trousers."

Harry did his best to comply, though the position was unnatural and his body was still protesting heavily from the previous exercises.

"Eyes to the front! And stop looking like you're in pain, for Heaven's sake, no one cares."

If Harry had had any doubt left that Ashton resented having been put in charge of the newbie, that last sentence would have put the final nail to this coffin.

"It will do. At ease."

This time, the other boy demonstrated without a pause, and Harry tried to gather the important aspect of his posture from the corner of his eyes.

"Your feet are too far apart, and you're supposed to move only your left feet when moving from attention to at ease position. Place your hands like that."

Ashton turned around to show Harry his hands, which he quickly copied. After surveying his new position and probably finding it acceptable, the miniature tyrant barked:

"Attention!"

Harry moved back to his previous position. He had to correct it by getting his stomach in and his chest out when Ashton viciously poked him in the aforementioned places but his errors apparently did not warrant another verbal lashing.

"At ease."

They continued like this for at least a dozen repetition, making Harry wish he could strangle his classmate. Around them, half a dozen older boys had gathered and were needling them.

"That's right, half-pint, put him through his pace."

"Look at that scrawny idiot, thinking he can pull the soldier look!"

It went on and on until Ashton appeared satisfied that Harry would not garner him any more punishment, at least not on that front. He finally released Harry from the stilted positions, but their evening was apparently far from over.

"Come, I'll give you the tour."

The _tour_ , as it was, was comprised mostly of the canteen, the laundry room, the administrative corridor -"If I end up here because of you, Potter, you'll wish you were dead."- the classrooms and their dormitory. They had to skip the obstacle race that lay not far in the forest because they were forbidden from leaving the buildings and the courtyard during free time. Ashton took delight in informing him that doing so would lead to several days of isolation, something he did not wish to experience. They ended up the tour by knocking on the open door of the upperclassmen' dormitory, to Harry's bewilderment.

A tall, muscled -as they all seemed to be here- teenager met them at the door.

"What do you want, midget?"

"The new kid needs his hair shaved."

A malicious smile graced the older kid's face at the news.

"Indeed he does. Get lost, runt, we'll take care of him."

An unwieldy hand settled on Harry's shoulder and pulled him inside the dormitory. Unlike the one Harry shared with the other younger years, the room was heavy with the scent of testosterone and sweat. A couple of students were snickering around a magazine, one was doing push-ups -why would one want to do additional exercise after the workout of the day, another was lying on his bed with his hands behind his head... But most of them were converging toward Harry and his _guide_ , looking as if Christmas had come early. Harry could not figure out why they appeared so elated by the prospect of helping him shave his head, or why they needed to be so many to do so, but he did not think it heralded anything good for him.

The hand on his shoulder shepherded him towards the bathroom he had caught a glimpse of through its open door. The group followed, like vultures circling a corpse, laughing rambunctiously among themselves. Starting to feel a bit like a lamb led to the slaughterhouse, Harry felt a shiver go down his back when he noticed that someone had closed the door to the dorm.

The bathroom was like any communal bathroom Harry had experienced, at Hogwarts or before in the gym. It had an open floor with half a dozen shower heads spaced regularly along the wall and pegs for towels and clothes on the opposite wall. Harry would have felt reassured by the familiarity of the sight if he had not been encircled by eight boys at least four years his senior, who were smiling at him like sharks who had smelt blood. Especially when one of them was brandishing clippers to his face.

"So... Why don't you start by undressing?"

Undressing? What would he need to undress for? Frowning heavily, Harry shook his head.

"I thought you were supposed to help cut my hair, why do you want me to undress?"

The rather logical question brought a loud guffaw out of the group. The one who had spoken before, who appeared to be the leader, backhanded him in response.

"It's Sir to you, runt! And you do what you are told, or we'll make you regret it..."

The violence seemed to please the crowd because they started to cheer on him, by means of "You teach him, Tait!", "Shut up, midget!" and other invectives.

As Harry did not move fast enough for their taste -still trying to recover from the shock as well as decide if he was going to try and make a run for it, they grabbed him by the arms and started to pull his uniform off of him. He struggled desperately against them, cursing and screaming in the hope that someone would intervene, but they were stronger and more numerous and they soon had Harry naked in front of them.

The jibes on his protuberant ribs and the tininess of his penis completed Harry's humiliation. He was crimson from his toes to the top of his hair and wishing more than anything else to disappear and never been seen again. The older boys started to push his body around, needling him about the tears that had started to roll down his cheeks. The game went on forever and ever -at least that was what it seemed to Harry- before the supposed leader put a stop to it.

"Alright guys, we need to actually get his hair taken care of before he misses curfew and someone comes looking for him."

His tormentors did not seem as disappointed as Harry would have expected to have their fun cut off. He soon understood why as the clippers made their reappearance and two oafs grabbed him again.

"Ever been sheared down there, punk?"

Harry shook his head, terrified and mortified. The clippers got closer to his crotch and he whimpered.

"I'd advice not to move too much, then. We wouldn't want you to be missing anything after we're done, teeny as your dick is, would we?"

The taunt offset another round of malicious laughter. Harry could do nothing but freeze in horror as the holder of the torture instrument took him in hand and turned it on. He closed his eyes but a heavy slap to the back of his head had him open them again.

"Didn't say you could stop looking, midget!"

Harry had nothing to distract him from the sensation of the clippers going over his sparse pubic hair. He did not dare struggle for fear of getting hit again, or worse, cut, and he was stuck between his fear, the nausea starting to build in his stomach, and the looks of vicious enjoyment from the boys around him.

He could not even unearth some relief when the clippers move away from his genitals and up to his head. The wielder's gestures were quicker and more efficient this time around, as it obviously did not bring him as much pleasure as his previous activity.

Finally, the ground was covered in his short, curly black locks and he caught sight of his naked, shaved self in the mirror along the wall. He looked so weak and lost among all those bulky, clothed bodies. He was snivelling pitifully and he could feel the snot blocking his airways. He was at the end of his rope.

It was probably why, when Tait, the leader of his harassers, put his hand between his legs and started to play with his penis, he lost it. He screamed to the top of his lungs, and, somehow escaping the relaxed hold the two brutes had had on his arms, he pushed his would-be rapist with all his might. His physical strength alone would not have done much damage, it might not even have been able to move the older boy at all, but Harry also put all of his magic in the push and the attacker flew across the room into the window. He did not break through the glass but left a definite crack in it as he slumped down on the floor.

The other thugs immediately fell silent and took a step back away from Harry. The younger boy stayed frozen for all of two seconds before rushing to his clothes, pulling his boxers back on and running away from the room with the rest of his clothes in his arms. He crossed the older years' dormitory as fast as humanly possible, skidded through the corridor and raced into his own dorm. He might not be much safer there, as Ashton was the one who had set him up, but at least his opponents would be of his own size.

His dormmates did not seem surprised in the least to see him rush in with only his boxers on. Maybe they had all known what was happening. Maybe they even had gone through it too. Harry did not care. They could all go to hell as far as he was concerned. The students, and the teachers who allowed that sort of things to happen.

He cast a glance towards the showers. He really wished for one but he was not willing to undress in front of anyone else that night, so when he realised that several boys were currently in the bathroom, he chooses to just forego it and curled up in his bed under the flimsy blanket provided by the school.

Of course, sleep was very long to come, and not just because of the noise the other kids made as they went about their lives. Harry finally cried himself to sleep at about three in the morning, but his panicked, humiliated thoughts carried on in his sleep through terrifying nightmares of faceless students in uniforms holding him down, naked, and cutting him down to pieces.


	4. Chapter 4

When he was woken up the next morning by the bell, Harry was too slow to get out of bed to the taste of his ever-helpful _guide_. Ashton pulled the covers off him and, when Harry made no move to get up, kicked him hard in the stomach.

"Up. You have to make your bed and stand at attention for the morning inspection."

Harry moaned but complied groggily. What choice did he have anyway? He struggled to smooth the sheets down to the norm of the beds next to him but managed a reasonable standard by the time Second Lieutenant Bothwell entered the room. He scrambled to join his peers in line in front of his bed, doing his very best to reproduce the position Ashton had drilled into him the past day.

The officer walked up and down the room, staring at each of them in turn, but apparently found nothing amiss during his inspection, because he ordered: "At ease. To breakfast." before he left the room.

Still half-asleep and trying to convince himself that he was simply living in an elaborate nightmare, Harry followed the other boys to the refectory, making sure to stay in the middle of the group to avoid any contact with older years.

He was in the middle of his breakfast -an uninspiring bowl of porridge- when the Second Lieutenant appeared in the canteen and barked:

"Recruit Potter! Report to the Deputy Head's office right now!"

With a heavy heart, Harry abandoned his bowl of food to climb the stairs to the office he had seen the day before. He did not dare hope that maybe Dumbledore had found out about his situation and had sent someone to retrieve him, knowing it was most certainly about what had happened with Tait the previous day. After all, he had run away without even making sure that the boy was alive after his brutal contact with the window. A chill went through him at that thought: what if he had killed the other boy? He had wanted to, at the time, but no matter what they had put him through Harry did not truly wish anyone dead.

He knocked on the door to the office but received no answer. Shuffling from one foot to the other, he decided to wait outside. It was better to have the person inside repeat themselves if he had just not heard than go in uninvited. Long minutes flew by, playing cruelly on his nerves, before he finally received the order to come in.

He did so tensely. Inside was only Lieutenant Moss, sitting behind her desk with an unreadable expression. She did not offer for him to sit down so he was left standing anxiously in front of her.

"Recruit Potter. Your name has been evoked in regards to a violent scuffle yesterday. What do you have to say on the subject."

Harry's brain went into overdrive. He had not thought they would tell on him because it would bring attention to their bullying, but if Tait had been hurt badly enough they would not have had the choice. What to say? He could be truthful but that would require exposing his humiliation aloud. Plus, there was no guarantee she would believe him. Or he could pretend he knew nothing about it and hope that the fact that his scrawny self had managed to hurt the bulky older boy was laughable played in his favour. Finally, he settled on a middle ground.

"Are you talking about how Tait hit a window, ma'am? I was in the bathroom with them when it happened, one of them was helping me cut my hair. The others were playfighting but I think Tait slipped or something, I'm not sure, I was not paying attention, to be honest. But it was an accident. Is he okay?"

The Lieutenant surveyed him in silence for several minutes before apparently coming to a conclusion on his involvement in the affair.

"He is at the hospital with a cracked skull and a concussion but should have no long-term issues. Even if you are not responsible for what happened, you should have reported it immediately. You'll do forty push-ups every day for a week to make sure you remember that we take the safety of our students very seriously here. You may go."

He was shaking with relief at the fact that she had believed him, even if he had received yet another punishment, when he left the room. He had to take a moment in the stairs to gather himself, before joining his classmates in the canteen where he remembered Ashton had said they would be doing their chores for the day. He silently started to gather the used cutlery and bowls from the empty tables, bringing them to the dish trays to the side of the room. Now wide awake, he was aware that his body was hurting everywhere, muscles he had not even known existed burning fiercely after his misadventures of the past day.

That made sitting in class -History and Geography with the barking professor of the previous day- all the more difficult, but Harry managed to make it through the morning without garnering the ire of yet another person. Lunch was uneventful, as there was no dessert to be stolen.

Trouble started again during the after-lunch training session. They had been instructed to pair up for stretching exercises and one of the brutes who had held him down during his torture the previous day had gotten his hooks into Harry. Instead of properly stretching him, he was pushing the younger boy's body to its very limits. Harry even heard one frightening crack at some point in his back, followed by an acute but short-lived pain. He could only glare at his tormentor, aware that this was revenge for his acting out. He had hoped that the fear of not understanding what had happened would keep the older boys away from him, at least for a few days, but it had apparently been a vain wish in this one's case.

Luckily for Harry, the instructor was keeping a close enough eye on them that his tormentor was not able to hurt him further. They were released after about half an hour of exercising when the ever-present bell rang to signal that it was time for class, Mathematics with Second Lieutenant Bothwell this time.

* * *

A full week elapsed without Harry getting into any major kind of trouble. Classes were relatively easy, as he was grouped together with students suffering from heavy dyslexia or other disabilities. Physical training was taxing and more often than not ended with Harry having to complete additional exercises as a punishment for not finishing the set task in time, but it was manageable.

Far less pleasant were the constant jibing, name-calling and pushing around from the older years and even some of the more self-assured younger students. From the behaviours he had observed and from the conversations he had heard, it had become quickly obvious to Harry that the school housed two categories of kids: troublemakers sent there as a last resort, and timid children whose parents hoped the military life would toughen them up. The distinction was less flagrant in the upper levels, probably because the meeker pupils had by then taken a leaf from their more violent counterparts, lest they continue to be bullied. Still, Harry had noticed several of his classmates being harassed by others when the teachers were not looking, so things obviously did not always get better with time.

He had managed to have a few conversations with some of his calmer dormmates, even getting one of them to share his mailing supplies with him so he could send a letter to the Grangers -he had concocted a lie about his relatives not wanting him to stay in touch with his friends whom they claimed had a bad influence on him. His missive had been picked up during the weekly mail collection on Saturday, when a lorry had come with supplies, and he was now waiting impatiently for someone to act on his cry for help -or at the very least for the Grangers to answer him.

Now well used to the heavily regulated routine of the school and its accompanying chores, Harry was at the moment carrying a basket of dirty clothing -mostly uniforms- from the dorms to the laundry room. He could not see very well where he was going over the heavy box, so it did not overly surprise him when Keith -as he had learned one of the brutes who had held him during his humiliating shaving was named- seized this opportunity to trip him and send him sprawling to the floor among the grimy clothes. Grumbling but aware that showing weakness would be a mistake, Harry ignored his skinned knees and palms and started to pick up the laundry lot and set it back into the basket. As expected, no one came to help him. There seemed to be an unspoken rule that one was on their own if being picked on by the older students.

When he was done, Harry picked up the basket again and strode toward the laundry room, this time without incident. Small vexations like this were constant at Monmouth Academy. They were nothing of gravity but were starting to wear on Harry's morale, which was already frail between his suspension from Hogwarts and the horrible events from his first night at this new school. His only relief was that he had not had another episode of accidental magic, which would have marked him as a freak. Harry was pretty sure that he did not want this label attached to him, considering how roughly the Dursleys had treated him his whole life for this very reason. Plus, he did not want to hurt anyone badly, and he knew that it was a very real possibility, as illustrated by what had happened to Tait.

Class followed the chores, and after was physical training, another run in the forest. It was then that things started to get pear-shaped again.

Harry was completing his fourth loop -far behind the main group but still mostly on track to complete the exercise on time- when a gaggle of older boys, led by Keith and Gibson -Keith's almost twin, stopped him on his tracks and pulled him roughly into the bushes. Harry knew better than to complain about their treatment, or even worse, call for a teacher: he had seen first hand how they treated tattletales the previous day when a First Year had come back to the dorms black and blue after he had tried going to the professors about his watch having been stolen. Instead, he opted for what he hoped was a neutral but slightly submissive stance, hoping that whatever game they had in mind would not be too painful or humiliating but intent on weathering it. However, his determination wavered when he noticed one of them carrying a knife.

"I don't know how you escaped punishment for sending Tait to the hospital, but you'll regret it, you runt. Hold him down!"

On Keith's order, Gibson and two other guys pulled him to the ground and held down his arms and legs, rendering him completely helpless. The knife-holder threw it in the air nonchalantly a few times, asking his audience:

"Where should I start? Cut a few lines down his chest, maybe? Or should I go directly for a finger?"

Unwilling to hear the answer, Harry opened his mouth to scream, reputation as a tattle-tale be damned but Gibson anticipated his action and covered his mouth with his sweaty hand. He tried to bite him but had no hold. To his horror, the boy with the knife was now just over him, unbuttoning his uniform shirt.

"I think I'll go for the chest, carve a few words there, maybe, any ideas guys?"

The group exploded in enthusiastic suggestions, as if they had been brainstorming what movie to watch instead of what words to carve into a twelve-year-old's chest. Harry bit back a cry. The knife flew in the air once more, falling back down into its owner's hand gracefully. The boys settled on what they wanted to _write_ , but Harry would have been quite unable to say what they had decided. In his panic, he had started hyperventilating and the sound of the blood whooshing in his ears was overcoming the rest. He was going to die, he was convinced of it.

The knife came close, very close, but just when it was going to touch Harry's chest, its wielder yelped, jumped back and threw it to the ground. Instead of its previously sharp blade stood a mess of melted steel. Harry blinked twice. The knife-owner was holding his burnt hand to his chest, yowling. No one else was moving.

"What are you boys doing?"

The voice of their instructor seemed to spring the boys into action. They released Harry and all sprinted back to the running path, letting Keith weave a lie to feed the teacher.

"We were running as instructed when Potter here bowled over Freeman. I have no idea where from, but the kid pulled out a knife so we decided to intervene and we managed to pin him down, but when Freeman tried to take the knife from him, he got burned. Don't know what kind of weapon that fucker was using but a knife that melts itself is fucking dangerous."

"Language, Recruit Keith! To the Head's office, all of you. Recruit Freeman, you may go to the infirmary but don't think that you're getting out of this. I'll take care of that melted knife."

Still trembling, Harry stood up and followed the others at the distance. Passing the professor, he considered trying to tell his own version of the events but decided against it in the face of her dispassionate stare. She looked like she could not care less what he had to say. He just had to hope that the Head would be willing to listen to him. Not that he had anything more believable than Keith's story to offer them. There was no way to explain the melted knife and Freeman's burn without magic. And if he tried to tell the truth about his accidental magic, not only would he be breaking the Statute of Secrecy, they would probably see him committed to a mental institution by the end of the day.

They had to wait for a long time in front of the Head's office, the other boys occasionally glaring at Harry like the entire situation was his fault, but not daring to harass him so close to the authority. In his week at Monmouth Academy, Harry had not yet had the occasion to cross path with the Head. Finally, their instructor left the office where she had been relaying the incident to the Head and a sharp voice called out:

"Recruit Potter!"

Harry dried his sweaty hands on the side of his trousers before slipping into the office.

The Head was a tall, muscular woman in a military uniform, like all the teachers there, but hers was decorated with medals and insignias. The first thing Harry noticed about her, however, was that she was missing one arm. She was no less terrifying for it, thought the child as he approached her desk and stood at attention.

"I would like to hear your side of what just happened in the woods. The story Corporal Johnston delivered to me was slightly unbelievable."

Harry took his chance to correct his role in the scuffle, even if he was well aware that he had nothing better to offer as a way of an explanation regarding the burning knife. Before he could really control the words coming out of his mouth, he had blurted:

"The others pulled me out of the track and held me down for Freeman to use his knife on me, ma'am. It wasn't mine, I swear, and I have no idea why it burnt him, or how it melted. I'm just glad it happened, to be honest, because I think they were going to hurt me badly."

He blushed a little at the whiny tone he had taken at the end. Show no weakness, even in front of the adults! He knew that was the only way he would survive in this school...

The Head's reaction, however, took him by surprise. She surveyed him for a few seconds before offering him a chair and picking up her phone.

"Moss? Yes, please collect the group of miscreants in front of my office and deal with them. They have attacked a schoolmate with the intention to cause grievous harm. Recruit Freeman was part of them, he should be in the infirmary at the moment. Thank you."

Harry gaped at her, unwilling to believe that it had taken so little for her to take his words for the truth. However, when she hang up and turned back to him, he guessed that she was far from finished with him.

"Now that this has been taken care of, I expect the truth about that knife. I know that it was not yours, but I also know that you are responsible for its melting. Did you do it on purpose?"

Bewildered by her direct approach and by the fact that she still thought he had done something to the knife even if she believed him when he said it was not his, Harry just shook his head vehemently.

"Very well. Are you aware of what happened?"

Here, Harry hesitated. He should say no, he really should, but then she might guess he was lying and he would lose all credibility in front of her. Plus, she seemed to be aware that something abnormal had happened but did not appear disgusted and flustered by it. So, almost to his own surprise, Harry found himself nodding in answer to her question.

"It is not the first incident since you arrived here, is it?"

Again, Harry nodded, preferring not to trust his words at the moment.

"Anything I should know about?"

Harry thought about it. The two other times his magic had escaped his control were after the placement test and with Tait. For the placement test, his burst had had no other consequence than having Second Lieutenant Bothwell stop his grading, but Harry doubted he would have ended up in another class if the man had finished looking at the testing sheets. As for Tait, the bully was already taken care of in a hospital, so there was no need for Harry to elaborate on the topic. Satisfied he was not concealing any important information, he shook his head to the negative.

"Very well. The army has a policy regarding students like you, so you will not be staying with us any longer. I will arrange for someone to collect you as soon as possible, to take you somewhere where they can actually accommodate your needs and provide training. In the meantime, you will stay in isolation, not as a punishment, but for your own safety."

Harry opened his mouth to ask what she meant by _somewhere where they could accommodate his needs_ but she cut him off before he could even get started.

"All will be explained to you in good time."

Obviously deeming the matter closed, she picked up her phone again and rang one of the teachers to come and take him to isolation. Head reeling from the events of the last few minutes, Harry followed the ever-barking professor who had turned up to fetch him to the end of the administrative corridor. There stood two teeny bedrooms complete with a toilet and a washbasin. Harry was pushed into one of them and the door was closed behind him. He heard the key being turned into its hole, bringing up uneasy memories of being locked up in his cupboard by his uncle and aunt, but he was too busy trying to figure out what was going to happen to him to really focus on his immediate surroundings.

It appeared that, once again, he would be uprooted and sent God knows where. Not that he especially wanted to stay at Monmouth Academy, what with the harassment he was the victim of, but what if wherever they sent him was worse? And how would Dumbledore find him if he kept moving like this? Even if the Grangers did not relay his message, surely the Headmaster would be looking for him when Professor McGonagall came back empty ended from her trip to his relatives at the end of his suspension. What if the Dursleys refused to tell the wizard where they had sent him, or if Monmouth's Head concealed his new location? Though surely she could not do that, as they were his guardians, she would be obligated to tell Petunia and Vernon where he was. And what was it about his needs and special training. ? Did the Muggle army really have a paranormal unit, like in movies and urban myths? It seemed like the only explanation: as the Head of a school for troublesome kids, she would have been trained to notice things out of the ordinary and sent the culprits to be studied by army scientists or used in secret operations. Already, Harry's head was filled with white operating rooms and soldiers with superpower running on a battlefield. Was war what was awaiting him? _All would be explained to him in good time_ , what a lot of tripe!

His thoughts went round and round in his head, trying to make sense of the Head's cryptic words. In his small cell -for there was no other way to qualify the room he had been locked into- there was not much else to do. He tried to do a few push-ups, as he had realised in the few days he had spent at Monmouth Academy that if one ignored the muscle pains that came with it, exercising was a good way to clear one's mind of unwanted thoughts. It did not do him any good, as the moment he stopped he was still stuck rehashing the same ideas.

A teacher came with his dinner at some point, and not long after they had been around again to collect his tray the lights in the room went off, clearly signalling that it was time for him to sleep. Despite the eerie quiet and the complete darkness, it took Harry a long time to actually fall asleep, his worry keeping him awake far after his usual bedtime.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

The next dawn did not bring any answers to Harry's multiple questions. He was woken up by the distant sound of the morning inspection bell and the sudden lighting up of the cell, but apart from quiet apparitions at mealtimes, he was left utterly alone in his four square-metres space, giving all its meaning to the term isolation.

It was only after dinner had passed that Lieutenant Moss came to let him out. She escorted him to the dorms, where she had him pack his small bag under the curious eyes of his roommates. She then took him to the courtyard, where he had noticed a military jeep when they had walked through from the central building to his dormitory. He followed her to the car, torn between excitement at the prospect of leaving that living hell and fear at not knowing what awaited him.

A man was waiting for them next to the car. As expected, he was clothed in an army uniform, but he could not have been further looking from the typical soldier image. In fact, Harry could not even imagine him engaging in any sort of physical activity without collapsing. The stranger was skinny, to the point where it was probably unhealthy, and unnaturally pale. He looked like a breeze would have him fall over, and yet he was holding a perfect attention position as they approached him.

"Thank you for collecting Recruit Potter, Private. Have a safe trip back to your base."

Lieutenant Moss saluted both of them, Harry scrambling to copy the unknown man as he mirrored her, and left. The child and the soldier looked at each other for a minute, gauging the other, until the adult broke into a smile and clasped Harry on his shoulder.

"Potter, is it? Drop your stuff in the back and get in, we have a long way in front of us."

The easy familiarity surprised Harry, after more than a week of icy detachment from the teachers and students alike. He obeyed, flinging his bag into the trunk of the jeep before walking around the vehicle to reach the passenger door. He climbed into the seat, buckled his seatbelt and prepared himself for a long, uncomfortable journey.

It turned out that the man, "Private Jonathan Hornsby, but just call me Joe, we're not too stuck on formalities in the unit" was terribly chatty and more than happy to keep a continuous conversation for more than an hour after they had set out. He had started by apologising for not being able to tell him anything about where they were going or the "unit", as he called it, but he had made up for it by asking Harry about his opinion on everything, from his favourite colour to his ideas on the recent elections, to his prefered sleeping position. Most questions Harry had been unable to answer, as he had very little knowledge of Muggle culture apart from what had been taught at his school, but Joe did not appear to mind much as he continued his string of inquiries. Often he would volunteer his own thoughts on Harry's answers, but never in a way that made the boy feel judged. After his full day in isolation, the conversation was rather welcome.

After some time, finally, Joe quieted down, mostly because he had caught Harry yawning several times in a row. After they stopped for a bathroom and coffee break -Harry considered making a run for it but he had no idea where he was or how to contact the Wizarding World so he did not dare- the adult told him to go to sleep and that he would wake him up when they arrived. Harry was rather convinced that he would not be able to fall asleep with the incertitude of his future still at the front of his mind but he did not argue, figuring that it could not hurt to close his eyes a bit.

He must have at least dozed off because the next thing he knew, the car was slowing down in front of a barrier and the clock displayed three in the morning. In the darkness, Harry could not see much of the place they had arrived at but he could guess its size from the multiple lights placed along the roads, and it was huge.

Joe showed his identification to the guard at the barrier and they were let in. He drove a few more minutes, taking several turns until he arrived at a flat, square building which looked very much like all the ones they had driven past before. If Harry had had to find his way back to the gate, he would have been lost in no time.

They climbed out of the car, Harry stumbling a bit as his legs had gone asleep from his time unmoving. Joe collected the young wizard's bag from the trunk of the jeep and lay his hand on Harry's shoulder to guide him into the building. He directed him to a dark room full of double bunks, whispering on the way that due to the time, the Lieutenant in charge would see him in the morning to explain everything. Harry was led to one of the beds and quietly told to undress and get some sleep. As by that time he was quite exhausted, despite his nap in the car, he followed the directive without a word, hoping that the officer would finally shed light on what was going on in the morning.

"Wake up, Harry!"

For a moment, Harry was disoriented. He had been dreaming that he was back at Hogwarts and the voice calling him was definitively not belonging to any of his friends and roommates there. Then, as he opened his eyes and was confronted with the vision of Joe's pale face, he remembered that he had been temporarily kicked out of Hogwarts, his school, his first real home, and was currently in an army base in an unknown location, for reasons only known by the Monmouth Academy Head and, from what he had understood, Joe's unit.

Groaning, he rolled out of bed and followed Joe's instructions to dress up -still in the Academy's uniform that he had left with- for breakfast. Around them, about thirty men and women of all ages and forms were doing the same. Harry even noticed two other kids, one young girl of around seven years old and a lanky teenager who could not have had more than seventeen years to his own.

"Come on, food's waiting!"

Despite the short amount of sleep he had gotten, Joe seemed as chipper and eager to chat as the previous day. He pointed out some things and others to Harry as they walked the short way to the canteen, another squat, rectangular building just a few minutes away. The refectory was full to the brim with eating soldiers but Joe guided him to an empty table to the side where the rest of their group also sat down. Breakfast was a bowl of unsweetened porridge with fresh fruits. Harry choose to cut a banana to add to his porridge as he saw his neighbours doing the same with various fruits. At the end of the table, a soldier was helping the little girl with her apple.

When they were done, they walked back to their barrack. Harry had noticed several of the group looking at him during breakfast, in particular the two other kids, but they had obviously been ordered to leave him alone because no one spoke to him other than Joe, who was prattling on about the various food that was on offer at the canteen and the special menu they would get for Halloween. Privately, Harry thought it was a bit early to get excited about Halloween already, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

Finally, Joe deposited him in front of an office and left with a wink after having knocked on the door. A deep voice called him in immediately. He pushed the door open and stepped in what turned out to be a small, overcrowded office with shelves full of ledgers covering every wall. A rotund man was sitting behind the desk, twirling a pen in his hand. As he appeared to be reading from a folder, Harry hesitated at the doorstep, unwilling to disturb him, but the man looked up at him and said kindly:

"Come in, kid, and close the door behind you."

Harry obeyed and shuffled toward the desk, plopping down in the chair sitting in front of it when the officer pointed at it.

"I am Lieutenant Beaumont, Benjamin. You may call me whatever you want, except for Ben. Now, if the procedure was respected, you probably have a lot of questions for me. I'll try to explain the best I can, so please keep your questions for the end. Your name is Harry Potter, isn't it, and you live with your aunt and uncle, the Dursleys?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Harry, the Head of Monmouth Academy sent you to us because it appears that you have what could be called, plainly speaking, magical powers. Those powers, when left untrained, will escape your control and cause all sorts of havoc. There exists a secret society of magic wielders but they are very exclusive and tend to scorn those who cannot use magic, so here in the Phantom Unit, we take in those who have been ignored by that society, or who wished to leave it. Considering you are past the age at which they send their children to a special school, I would say you go in the first category.

Anyway, as a disparate group of people, we are not suited for the battlefront. Instead, our two primary aims is to provide a home for those whose powers might be a danger to themselves and others, and to help civilians, with disaster relieve for example. We also have a roster of volunteers keeping an eye on the Queen. You will find that, while we are still part of the army, we are very much our own people.

Now, in case you are worried about your relatives, which I doubt considering the comments Monmouth Academy made in your file, I'm afraid you won't be allowed to see them again until you have a handle on your powers. Even then, you will not be allowed to tell them what the unit is for. It is to protect all of us from unwanted attention from both the media and the magical society. But if I read correctly between the lines, you should be rather relieved not to have to go back to them.

Any questions?"

What a mess, was Harry's first thought. Of all things, he had not expected when he had followed Ron back to his dad's car that he would end up in a secret army unit for magical users spurned by the Wizarding World. How did he deal with this? He was pretty sure that explaining that he had only been suspended from Hogwarts and that he would not be staying would not go well with the Lieutenant. Could he hide his knowledge of the Wizarding World entirely? Harry decided that it was his best bet, and settled for a defiant, half-unbelieving answer.

"Can you prove it? That magic exists, I mean."

"I can. What would you like me to do?"

His interlocutor seemed ready to humour him, though he had probably expected the question.

"Lift something in the air? This."

Harry pointed to an heavy-looking paperweight resting on the desk. Lieutenant Beaumont extended his hand towards it and frowned. The paperweight rose a few centimetres, did a small eight-figure in the air and went back down. Harry looked at it, bewildered: the man had not even needed a wand, or words, to perform magic! It went against everything Harry had been taught during his first few days at Hogwarts. He had known that wandless, wordless magic was possible because he had seen Dumbledore perform some the previous year, but it was supposed to be the prerogative of extremely powerful wizards and witches, as the Headmaster. In shock, Harry blurted out:

"You didn't use a wand!"

The Lieutenant's expression, which until then had been jovial, became instantaneously suspicious.

"Why would you think I'd need one?"

Harry blushed a bright red. Indeed, that was a strange remark for someone who was supposed to know nothing about magic, and especially, about the Wizarding World. He fumbled with his words, trying to put together an explanation about how witches always had wands in stories, but it sounded pitiful even to his ears.

"Harry, stop. Whatever you are hiding, I do not plan to use it against you. As I have told you, this will be your home from now on, and if we stretch it a bit, we will be your family. I know we have just met each other, but it is important you trust me so I can protect you and the rest of the unit to the best of my abilities."

Maybe it was the fact that he had been included as a part of the unit already. Maybe it was because he was tired of lying and hiding who he really was. Maybe it was because he did not have any better explanation than the truth. In any case, Harry caved in without a second thought and started to spill his story:

"I already know about magic, have known since last year when Hagrid, he's the game-keeper at Hogwarts, I don't know if you know the name, it's the wizarding school you were talking about earlier, anyway, Hagrid came and gave me my Hogwarts letter and explained about magic. I went to Hogwarts last year, was supposed to go back this year, but I did something really stupid on my way there so they suspended me and my friend. And my relatives hate magic, they've always known that I had it but they hid it from me, so when I was dropped back at their house ten days ago, they decided they didn't want to deal with me anymore and they sent me to Monmouth Academy. I didn't think I'd have so many problems with accidental magic, I mean, it's supposed to go away once you start learning with a wand, but Monmouth, it was, ... Anyway, I didn't mean to end up here, and now Dumbledore, he's the Headmaster at Hogwarts, he'll probably look for me when it's time for me to go back, so really, I don't want to disturb you for just three weeks, it's better if you send me back to Monmouth Academy."

His voice cracked a bit at the end, revealing how much he did not want to go back to the military school. But he could not see any other resolution to his current situation. Lieutenant Beaumont sighed.

"I'm not going to send you back to a place where you had several episodes of accidental magic in a single week, kiddo. No matter the reason, it means that you are not safe there. Plus, tell me this, did you lose control in anger or in self-defence?"

Harry fidgeted awkwardly under the knowing look of the adult. He mumbled, "self-defence," and looked down to his hands, ashamed that he had not been able to defend himself otherwise against the other boys.

"I thought so. Harry, no matter what some people think about toughening children up, hazing and bullying are wrong. And there is absolutely no shame in not being able to stand up against a group, moreover a bunch of older, stronger kids. You can be glad that your magic reacted and protected you."

Not really convinced, Harry nodded to humour the officer. However, it seemed that the man had other questions for him.

"Your situation is unexpected, so I'll have to think about it before I can tell you what we are going to do. But there are a few things that are bothering me in your tale. Would you mind telling me what you did that warranted suspension? You do not strike me as a violent person..."

"Oh, no, I didn't attack anybody, or anything, if that's what you were thinking. My friend and I flew his dad's enchanted car to school, and some Muggles, non-magic people that is, saw us, so the Ministry pushed for our expulsion."

"The Ministry? No, wait, before that, why did you do it? I take it that a flying car is not a standard mean of transportation in the magical society? You should be too young to drive, in any case."

"No, it's forbidden to spell Muggle objects, so I think Ron's dad was going to be in trouble for making his car flyable. But we didn't really think about that. You see, to go to Hogwarts, we are supposed to take the train on Platform Nine and Three Quarters in London. To get to the platform there's a wall that's not really there, and you can walk through it. Except this time, the barrier closed and we couldn't get through. We were almost late so we were the only ones, Ron's family had already gone through, and we missed the train. We panicked a bit and then Ron thought about his dad's car. So we took it and flew to school. The problem was, there was supposed to be a mechanism to make it invisible, so Muggles, people who don't have magic, can't see it. Apparently, it didn't work because we ended up in the newspapers..."

"A bad decision with unforeseeable consequences... Now, coming back to the Ministry, what does it have to do with your suspension?"

"The Ministry, the Ministry of Magic that is, had to send people to do damage control after we were seen. Originally, Professor McGonagall, my Head of House, had just assigned us detention, but the next day the Headmaster told us that the Ministry wanted us punished more severely and he had been able to negotiate a one-month suspension instead of an expulsion."

"What I don't understand is why, if this was considered a school matter, the government had any say in your punishment? And if it was not considered a school matter but a criminal offence, why was your punishment dealt with by the school and not by whatever judiciary organ the magical society must have? In that case, it would probably have been your guardians who would have been judged, given your age."

"I... I don't know. Maybe Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster, managed to get us off the hook before they charged us in a tribunal?"

Harry could not really see why it mattered. He had been suspended and that was bad enough in his opinion. Involving his guardians in his mistake would have been completely stupid from the Ministry part, as they were Muggles.

"Hum... Let's move on. Did you tell your Headmaster, or any of your professors, that your relatives were not treating you properly?"

Harry looked at the man, flabbergasted.

"What do you mean, not treating me properly?"

"Harry, no proper guardians would drop down their charge at an unknown school after a single phone call. Plus, it says in your file that you arrived in clothes that were nowhere near your size and had obviously seen better days, while your aunt appeared by no means poor. Add to this the fact that you said your relatives hate magic and hid the fact that you were magical from you, and I very much doubt they were loving guardians. If anything, I would bet that this is only the surface of things."

Reluctantly, Harry admitted that the Dursleys' treatment of him often left a lot to be desired.

"But they are scared. They don't understand magic so they would rather I was normal."

"This is neither here nor there. You and I will need to have another conversation on the topic, but for now, I would just like to know if you have told anyone."

"I tried, in Primary school, but no one believed me. And I asked Professor Dumbledore if I could stay at Hogwarts during the summer holidays, but he said no. I didn't want anyone in the Wizarding World to know, not really."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm famous, for some stupid reason, so people are already treating me differently, I didn't want to be even more of a freak."

"Abuse does not make you a freak, Harry. We are definitively going to have this conversation once you have settled... For now, I want you to go and find Joe, he should be in the training room, he will introduce you to the others. Unless you have more questions for me?"

"You didn't tell me how you managed to do magic without a wand..."

Lieutenant Beaumont smiled, a proud smile that creased his face in multiple lines around his mouth and eyes.

"This, Harry, is the secret of the Phantom Unit. Because wands are too conspicuous, we had to find another way to focus our magic. One of ours was a surgeon before we took notice of his accidental magic and offered him a place in the team, and he developed a brilliant implant procedure that allows us to perform magic without any external accessory. If we decide that you are staying, you'll have the possibility to get one too. In the meantime, you'll be working on your control without a wand, which I guess will be quite different from what you did at Hogwarts."

"What's an implant?"

"It's a small device that is inserted just under your skin. In our case, it's a wooden cylinder that contains some magically loaded substance and acts as a wand."

"Wow."

Harry's first thought was to be thoroughly impressed by the ingenuity of the group, while is second was about Hermione and how excited she would be to hear about that. That brought another question to his mind.

"You are not going to stop me from going back to Hogwarts, are you? You said if we decide that I am staying, but I want to go back there once my suspension is over!"

"I cannot tell you yet, Harry. I'll do my best to take your wishes into account, but I have to consider the safety of the rest of the unit too. I'll tell you as soon as I've reached my decision, okay?"

Harry frowned. It did not sound very encouraging. Maybe he would have to do some thinking about what arguments he could give the Lieutenant on why it was better to let him go back. Of course, there was always the possibility that Professor Dumbledore come looking for him in person, and then he doubted Lieutenant Beaumont would have the magical strength to resist if the Headmaster wanted to take him back. He attempted:

"I promise I won't say a thing about the unit if you let me go!"

"I believe you don't intend to, Harry, but sometimes these things slip out of one's mouth, and your friends are due to be curious about where you have been. Do you really want to have to lie to them?"

"I will do it if I need to," Harry answered decisively.

"I'll keep that in mind. Now, why don't you go meet the others? The training room is the third door on the left when you walk back to the dorms."

Recognising the dismissal for what it was, Harry nodded and left the room. He followed the corridor to the door mentioned by the Lieutenant and got into the training room.


	6. Chapter 6

The room was twice as large as their sleeping quarters and covered in padding that what heavily shredded in places. It housed an assortment of a dozen targets and mannequins spread across it, as well as a couple work out machines. The entire group appeared to be in there, working in pairs in different corners of the room. It reminded Harry of practical sessions at Hogwarts, except that the average age was around thirty. Harry made a beeline for Joe, who was talking with the seven-year-old from before while scribbling furiously in a notebook.

"Harry! Did your talk with the boss go well?"

Harry shrugged, unsure that well was the best way to characterise his recent discussion with Lieutenant Beaumont. It would have if he had been able to extract a promise about letting him go back to Hogwarts... Joe did not pick him up on his vague gesture and instead proceeded to round up the group.

"Hoy, folks, come to meet our new member!"

Immediately, the others, some of whom had been not very discreetly waiting for Joe's okay to approach, dropped down what they had been working on and swarmed around Harry.

"His name is Harry, Harry Potter, and he's been sent to us by the not-so-fine Monmouth Academy."

At the mention of the military school, Harry saw a couple of winces and someone patted his shoulder.

"Good job escaping the place, kiddo."

"Harry Potter, like, the Harry Potter who defeated You-Know-Who?"

Several members of the group looked at the enthusiastic man who had asked the question, a confused frown on their face.

"He knows who? What are you talking about?"

Harry sighed. It figured that wherever they were wizards, they would be at least one fan of him. It was probably one of those who Lieutenant Beaumont had said had left the Wizarding World after school.

"I didn't do anything, you know, I was only one year old. Plus, I didn't apparently defeat him totally because he turned up at the school last year."

The few people who understood who they were talking about gasped and a severe-looking woman questioned him.

"What do you mean, he turned up at your school?"

Sensing that the conversation was going to take on too much of a serious path, Joe rose his hands and protectively stepped in front of Harry, increasing immensely the respect the boy had for him.

"Wow, wow, let's calm down here. You'll have all the time to pick at him later on, maybe we could keep things to introductions here? So as to not send him running..."

"You are the only one here that getting introduced to twenty-eight new people in one go would not send running, Joe-boy," joked a middle-aged man with greying hair. He continued by holding out his hand to Harry:

"Lennox Coppin, but all of them miscreants call me 'Nox. I'm the veteran here, been roaming those halls for almost forty years."

This onset a cascade of introductions and name-giving. Two Mary's, one of which was the seven "and three quarter" year old he had noticed before, a Colin, a Mohammed and a Muhammad, Lisa Primrose, Brenda Sutherland, Robert "Bobby" Thomas, ... The lanky teenager Harry had spotted before bore the unlucky name of Fergus Fergusson. Joe cheerfully informed him that while they were allowed to call Lieutenant Beaumont by his first name, Benjamin, most of them preferred to jokingly call him boss. A bit overwhelmed, Harry had to apologise when he mixed up two names while trying to answer their questions about how he had ended up with them.

Around eleven, Joe, his official guide -a job he took much more gracefully than Ashton had, put an end to the discussion on the pretext that he had to take Harry for supplies. They took the car to cross the compound, which, as Harry had guessed the day before, was quite extensive. They stopped at one of the borders, in front of one of the only buildings spanning several floors.

First, Joe took him to an office where they got issued a series of cards indicating what material they were allowed to withdraw. The woman in charge ogled Harry the entire time, probably because of his very young age. As a trained soldier, however, she knew better than to question them as Joe had provided the proper forms filled by their Lieutenant.

Their next stop was to a room filled entirely with huge but empty duffle bags. Joe exchanged one of his tickets for one, holding on to it when Harry tried to take it.

"It's going to be filled with more stuff than you can imagine soon, it's better if I carry it."

True to his word, Joe kept on carrying the bag as they added some things and others to it, soap, towels, writing supplies, ... When they came to the clothing stock, Joe had to ask for a set of uniforms to be custom made for Harry as they obviously did not usually cater for children sizes. Harry was made to stand still while the soldier in charge of the supply took his measurements. The man informed them that they would be able to pick up Harry's uniform two weeks later. The young wizard thought it was a bit of a waste to spend time and money on providing him with a uniform he would wear for so little time but he kept the thought to himself, as Joe was not aware that he planned to go back to Hogwarts at the end of his suspension, if the Lieutenant would let him.

Back in the dorms, Joe helped him organise his newly acquired stuff in his assigned locker, before grabbing the bag he had brought from the Dursleys. On seeing the state of the meagre collection of casual clothing that Harry owned, Joe had started muttering about the necessity of a speedy shopping spree, to Harry's embarrassment. Thankfully, no more was said on the matter as they joined the rest of the unit for lunch, where Muhammad started up the line of discussion that Joe had previously interrupted:

"So, Harry, what did you mean when you said that You-Know-Who had shown up at your school last year? I assume that you're talking about Hogwarts?"

"Yes, Hogwarts. I met Voldemort twice last year, once in the Forbidden Forest and then at the end of the year when he attempted to steal the Philosopher Stone. Though he's just... some kind of ghost, I guess? Not really a ghost but not entirely alive either."

Everyone was looking at him like he had just grown a second head. Obviously, those who had not known about Voldemort before had been briefed by the others while he had been collecting supplies with Joe. To all of their credit, no one even winced at the mention of Voldemort's name.

"Wow, wow, slow down! What do you mean, you met him? If he was in Hogwarts, how come the Wizarding World isn't topsy-turvy in abject fear?"

"Muhammad went to Hogwarts for his schooling, but he left the wizarding society when he couldn't find a job afterwards," Joe piped up from Harry's side.

"Yes, don't get me started on the prejudice those people hold against those born from non-magical families! But that's not the subject here..."

Felling a bit pressured by the intensity of the gazes resting on him, Harry tried to organise his thoughts to better answer.

"The first time, I was in the Forbidden Forest for a detention, and suddenly my scar started hurting and there was some sort of spectre drinking the blood of a dead unicorn. When it saw me it floated toward me but a centaur arrived and the thing fled. Firenze, the centaur, explained to me what that unicorn blood can keep someone alive but cursed, so I realised that the ghost must have been Voldemort. But I wasn't sure until the end of the year when my friends and I tried to save the Philosopher's Stone from him. He was possessing my Defense Against the Dark Art professor and he was like a second face at the back of his head, it was disgusting and honestly really scary. He tried to get me to give him the stone but I refused, so Quirrell, the Defense professor, tried to force me to do it but my hands burned him to ashes, it was really gross, then I fainted and I woke up in the Hospital Wing. Professor Dumbledore told me that Voldemort had escaped, but the Stone has been destroyed so he cannot come back that way anymore. I'm not sure why he didn't warn the Ministry or something that he is still around, though."

His speech had drawn many frowns upon the faces of those listening. A petite woman Harry thought was Brenda asked:

"Why were your friends and you trying to save the Philosopher Stone? And if that was what I think it was, how come was it in a school in the first place?"

"That's because Professor Dumbledore is the only wizard Voldemort's afraid of, so I guess the Flamels must have asked him to help protect the Stone when they realised it was in danger. He had all those obstacles protecting it, Fluffy -a three-headed Cerberus, the Devil's Snare, enchanted keys, a life-size chessboard, a Mountain Troll, a potions riddle and the Mirror of Erised. We guessed that someone was going to try and steal the Stone -we were just wrong about what teacher was helping Voldemort- but Professor Dumbledore was away and Professor McGonagall didn't believe us. So we decided to go ourselves. Ron was knocked unconscious by a chess piece and Hermione had to stay behind at the potion riddles because there was only enough potion for one to go forward. So I ended up alone with Voldemort, no one saw him but me, maybe that's why Professor Dumbledore couldn't tell the Ministry, they wouldn't have believed me."

Muhammad spoke against, in barely contained anger, making Harry shrink on his seat.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you mean to say that Dumbledore not only knowingly hosted something that he knew would draw You-Know-Who, Voldemort, out, in a school full of children, but he also set up a mortal obstacle course to protect it, in a place accessible to said children?"

Harry meekly tried to defend his Headmaster:

"Well, the door was locked, and he did warn us away from the third-floor corridor on fear of a very painful death."

Most of the adults around him were looking at him as if he was an enigma that they could not solve. Muhammad stood up, nearly knocking his chair off in the process, and declared:

"I'm done. I'm going to see the boss."

Harry followed his exit, bewildered. What had he said? Joe patted his shoulder reassuringly.

"Don't worry about it. He is kind of an intense guy. But your stories are definitively not endearing the magical society to us..."

Harry looked at him, and at the others nodding around them, quizzically.

"But why?"

"Kiddo, what would you say is the first mission of a school, especially a boarding school?"

"Err... To teach the curriculum?"

It seemed so obvious that Harry was sure there was a trap somewhere.

"No. It's to ensure the mental and physical safety of its pupils. Something that we all know Monmouth Academy don't really care about, and from what you said, neither does Hogwarts."

Harry gaped at Joe. Of course, Hogwarts cared for their safety!

"It's not the professors' fault if we went running looking for trouble!"

"Harry, the most trouble you should be able to get into at school is breaking your leg because you were running down the stairs. Not dying a very painful death trying to protect a magical artefact. Do you understand?"

Harry considered the unusually serious man's words. It made sense, sort of. Harry had been really angry at Professor McGonagall when she had overlooked their warnings and he had been really afraid for his life several times during the year. Still, the comparison between the two schools stung. Hogwarts was his home and despite the dangers, it was a hundred times better than Monmouth Academy, and not just because he could practise magic there.

In the end, he nodded to humour Joe and went back to picking at his lunch. The adults around him, sensing that he did not wish to discuss the matter further, fell into their own conversations. A few seats away from him, little Mary took the opportunity to question him on the school:

"Is it true that the paintings move over there? And that the stairs shift all the time so you sometimes end up somewhere completely different from where you wanted to go?"

Harry smiled at her and started to answer when he was cut off by Fergus.

"Oh, come on, Mary, give it a rest. You've already been told all there is to know about the bloody castle, why do you have to quiz the new kid on it?"

Bristling at being called a kid by someone just a few years his elder, Harry protested:

"I don't mind. Yes, it's all true. Some of the paintings are nice, like helping you to get to class on time if you're lost, and others are real sticklers for the rules, like the Fat Lady, the portrait guarding the entrance of Gryffindor Tower, who won't let anyone in who doesn't have the password, even if she recognises them."

"Was Gryffindor your house?"

The past tense rankled a bit, but Harry still answered.

"Yes, it is. It's the house of the brave and determined."

"Do you have a ghost? Muhammad said his house's ghost was the Fat Friar."

The man must have been a Hufflepuff then.

"Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, though we call him Nearly Headless Nick, because his head was cut half-way off."

"Eurgh, that's disgusting! See Fergus, I don't know everything about Hogwarts yet!"

The moody teenager copied her in a mocking voice, only to be told off by his neighbour, whose name escaped Harry.

After lunch, Joe took Harry back to the training room and left him in the hands of a woman who, aware that Harry had trouble recognising all of them already, re-introduced herself as Michelle Simpson. She was one of the oldest around, in her mid-forties, and she was the one in charge of meditation training.

"Have you ever meditated before, Harry?"

When he answered to the negative, she continued.

"It will help with several aspects. First, it helps stabilise your emotions, so accidental bursts are less frequent. Second, you become used to the type of introspective work that is necessary to develop wandless magic. And third, if you ever work on mind magic you will have a huge headstart, but that's for much later. So, should we start?"

They sat down in a free corner of the room, crosslegged in front of each other. Michelle must have cast a silencing ward as the noises of the activities going on around them were suddenly dampened. She started to instruct him to relax and listen to his breath, going back to it every time he felt his thoughts wandering.

After a few tries, Harry was getting frustrated because he kept thinking about one thing or another, unable to focus solely on his breathing. She took some time to reassure him and explained, with a kind smile, that what he experienced was normal and expected, and that he needed only to acknowledge those stray thoughts before going back to his breathing every time.

It was a repetitive, thankless exercise as Harry had no way to measure his progress. Unlike Charms or Potions, meditation did not come with a tangible result at the end. However, Michelle seemed pleased with him when she released him after two long hours and told him to go play.

Unsure what he was supposed to do -after all he had no games or playmates to entertain himself with- he settled for watching the others' working.

He lasted all of fifteen minutes -and wasn't it impressive to witness wandless magic done with that level of casualness- before Mary appeared to his side and begged he battle her at Super Mario Bros. He had no idea what that was but he followed her, discovering a small but cosy recreational room opposite the training room. He recognised the weird device she was turning on under the TV as a gaming console, having seen its equivalent in Dudley's room before.

Mary had him sit down on the sofa facing the TV and forced a controller in his hand. She gave him a perfunctory explanation of the control before launching the game. Completely out of his depth, Harry kept dying in the most ridiculous ways -who knew that turtles were so murderous- to the pure delight of his opponent.


	7. Chapter 7

When Joe swung by to tell them it was time for the daily regroup, Harry was proud to say that he had progressed enough to finish the first level, though his completion time still left a lot to be desired. Video gaming was harder than it looked! It was a wonder Dudley had even enjoyed it, with his spectacular lack of patience.

As they turned off the console and walked back to the training room, Mary helpfully informed him that daily regroup was the time when they took stock of the status of their different missions and could ask for anything they needed, like clothes or new games. Harry doubted that that part was the main goal of the meetings, but it made sense that it was the most important part for a seven-year-old.

They joined the circle of cross-legged soldiers arranged around Lieutenant Beaumont.

"Good, everyone is here. Now, I know that you have all met Harry, but I would like to officially welcome him among us. We are not sure he is going to stay with us in the long-term, but for now, let's operate as if it was the case. So, Harry, welcome to the Phantom Unit!"

Everybody clapped enthusiastically and a few even hooted, making Harry blush and duck his head. Mostly, he was embarrassed by the trouble his unique situation would most likely bring to the team, who had been most welcoming, especially compared to his recent experience with the military world at Monmouth Academy. He really did not want the Ministry to discover their existence because of his presence...

"Moving on, Damien, Kathryn and James are coming back from their detail at Buckingham tomorrow, and Sacha, Colin and Terence are leaving tonight to replace them. I need to remind you that the roster has only been established until the end of the month, so if you want to put your name in or withdraw from the list, now is the time. Anyone? Good, I'll check with our missing members that everything is okay for them when they arrive. Bobby, I'm still waiting for your report on last month's collapse! Do I need to literally kick your lazy ass to get it?"

Bobby chuckled and put his hand over his heart.

"On your desk before the end of the week, boss, my word!"

"You'd better, Private..."

The entire exchange was traded lightly, the participants not taking themselves too seriously. It was far from what Harry had expected from an army unit, but again, they had warned him several times that they did not stand on formalities. That made Harry realised that he had not seen anyone take the attention or even the at ease position since he had arrived. Uniforms excluded, the Phantom Unit looked more like a group of friends than a military section.

"How did training go? Any problem?"

All shook their heads and Muhammad raised his hand, speaking up after the Lieutenant had inclined his head toward him.

"Just wanted to congratulate Colin on breaking his first mannequin in combat training."

Colin, a plump man with jet black hair and different coloured eyes pumped his fist in the air under the cheers of the team. Accepting the congratulations of his mates, he caught Harry's confused faced and explained:

"The mannequins are reinforced every day by those of us who have learned to infuse magic into an object, so it takes a lot to make any damage, even more so to make enough damage that they won't be usable anymore. I've been working on my power levels for some time so it was a much-awaited achievement. Now, I'll have to work on building new ones else I'll deplete our stock," he added jokingly.

The Lieutenant, or boss, as everyone called him there, let the team tease Colin for a few minutes on his newly acquired strength, before he took the reins of the meeting again.

"Alright, alright. Anything else?"

The woman Harry had identified as Lisa spoke up:

"Are we going to do anything about this Voldemort character? It seems as if he did quite a lot of damage outside of the magical society the last time he was alive."

"Yes, Muhammad relayed Harry's story to me. I will have a few questions for you myself," Lieutenant Beaumont said looking at Harry, "but this is a matter worth considering. The majority of you were not part of the unit yet during his previous rise to power, but we were involved in damage control whenever he attacked non-magicals. The magical society was so overwhelmed by the attacks that they did little outside of wiping the memories of the victims clean, they did nothing for the physical damage for example. As you remember, at the time we had not yet access to our focus implants, so there was not much we could do against his cultic group without revealing ourselves. If it comes to this we would be able to do more now. But hopefully, we can prevent the war from happening again by getting rid of the enemy while he is weak. Once I have all the possible information I'll organise a briefing on the question."

Lisa nodded, satisfied for the time. After a few seconds of silence, Joe piped up.

"If we're done with the gloomy stuff, I want to organise a shopping trip. Harry is in dire need of new clothing and I know that several of us adults want to renew part of our wardrobes."

"Sure, when do you want to go?"

"Tomorrow? When I say dire need, I mean that he more or less only has his school uniform to his name..."

Despite the fact that he knew Joe meant well, Harry blushed crimson at the public acknowledgement of how little clothing he owned. It was not his fault if the Dursleys despised spending any sort of money on him!

"I'll arrange for a bus, but bring me back Sherbet Filled Wafers."

"Deal!"

"Alrighty, anything else folks?"

When no one came forth with a question or a remark, the Lieutenant clapped his hands together once and stood up.

"That's it for today. My office door's open, as usual, if you have anything to tell me in private."

The last was addressed primarily to Harry, who gave him a small thankful smile. However, he had nothing more to tell the man after their enlightening but tiring discussion of the morning.

The evening enfolded without hitch, Harry playing a bunch of card games with the older soldiers and watching a ridiculous sci-fi movie on the TV. He had never had the opportunity to watch a full movie before, always catching glimpses from the corridor before being chased away by the Dursleys, and he rather liked it. At least he had a good laugh and he forgot about Hogwarts, his suspension and the horrible Monmouth Academy for a time.

* * *

The next few days were spent in the same vein, doing schoolwork in the mornings -the underage members of the unit were _homeschooled_ thanks to governmental issued activity books- and meditation in the afternoons. The shopping trip had been hectic: Joe had taken charge with Lisa and they had pulled and pushed Harry into a myriad of different shops, getting him to try on almost every article of clothing available in the district centre they had visited and buying more clothes than Harry had ever owned. He had been horrified and exhausted by the process, but he had to admit that it was nice to wear funny T-shirts with pictures that he had picked, not to mention actually being in possession of new underwear. The group was light-hearted and always teasing each other with a familiarity originated from years spent together, while still managing to make Harry feel welcome. The only darker point of his current life, as far as Harry was concerned, was that he missed his friends fiercely. He was surprised not to have received any mail, be it through owls or through the Muggle post -as he was expecting an answer from the Grangers he had asked the Lieutenant who had assured him that Monmouth Academy would forward any mail to him. Sometimes, at night, when the excitement of the day had faded, he wondered if Ron and Hermione were angry at him for the car episode, if they had forgotten about him, or if they were just trying to be mindful of the Dursleys' sensitivity by not sending any letter. Harry had forgotten all about how Dobby had stolen his mail in the summer and might be doing the same again.

He was sitting at the round table they used to do their schoolwork on the Wednesday of his third week of suspension when the Lieutenant came to find him.

"Harry? May I have a moment of your time?"

Harry stood up, abandoning his algebra notebook, eager to hear what the boss would say about going back to Hogwarts. They went to the officer's office and Benjamin offered him some tea from an ancient teapot he had balanced precariously over a pile of folders. Once they were comfortably settled, Harry asked the question that had been on his mind since their last talk.

"Will you let me go back to Hogwarts in ten days?"

Lieutenant Beaumont gave a little chuckle at Harry's directedness but quickly regained his seriousness.

"I don't think that is very reasonable, Harry. No, let me explain," he insisted as Harry opened his mouth to protest. "I told you before that I would do what was best for you and the rest of the team before, didn't I? Well, consider this: one of the most important conditions to this unit's existence was to remain hidden from the magical society. But your situation is endangering this very premise, especially with how famous you are over there. We could send you back to your relatives and have you pretend that you spent the month with them, but it is too risky. There are ways for magical people to read other people's mind, plus your relatives might say something. Much better to control when and how they come to learn of us, if we cannot stop it from happening. I'm not planning to let them know everything the Phantom Unit, far from it. If you remain with us there will be no way for them to learn more than the strictly superficial information we will feed them. That's for the team's part.

Now, as far as your personal well-being is concerned, I don't think there is any doubt what is better. Even if it was just their unresponsiveness in regards to the sign that you were being abused by your relatives, I would be unwilling to let you go back. But according to what you have told the others, you have also been placed in several life-threatening positions during your school year: detention in a forest called Forbidden, where you first encountered Voldemort, a series of traps designed to kill adult wizards when you went looking for the Philosopher's Stone, and should I mention this troll story I heard you tell Mary the other day? And if getting into those situations was not enough, your teachers did not arrange for any counselling afterwards -is there even a counsellor at Hogwarts? So it is clear that you are not safe, be it mentally or physically, at Hogwarts."

Harry was devastated. He understood what the Lieutenant was telling him, but it did not matter when he would be cut off from his friends and his first and only home. He said as such to the man in front of him, his eyes tearing up a bit.

"I understand, Harry, truly, I understand. By I'm now your guardian by proxy, as your relatives lost any rights to you when Monmouth Academy sent you to us, and I have to do what I believe is right by you. And that school is not suitable for eleven-year-olds. If I could, I'd make sure Hogwarts was secure so you and all of your schoolmates could enjoy a danger-free schooling, but I can't, so I have to do my best in the limits of my abilities. And no one said that you couldn't see your friends anymore. As long as we discuss what you can and cannot tell them in advance, I see no problem in you exchanging letters and visiting them during the holidays. And I know that it might not be a huge comfort at the moment, but you will make new friends here. You have a home with us and that is never going to change. Even those who leave because they have enough control over their magic and they want to do something else know that they can come back whenever they want."

Harry sniffled but nodded, aware that there was not much he could do to change Benjamin's mind. He could only hope that Professor Dumbledore would come looking for him and steal him away.

"Do you want to go over the plan now or closer to the date? I'll understand if you want to digest the news before discussing it further."

Harry was grateful for the offer of a reprieve but he would rather have all the information, so he answered:

"Now, please."

"Okay. First, you need to know that Monmouth Academy will make sure we are aware of it the moment someone comes looking for you. Even if your relatives refuse to reveal your location, as I said, there are ways in which magical folks can extract information from people's minds and we cannot rely upon the fact that they won't use them. When we get word that they are coming, most of the unit will leave for a few days of field training. We'll keep only five of the adults, all trained in mind magic so they can resist if someone tries to read their mind -I'll teach you to recognise the signs so you can avoid your mind being read too. Now, here is what I'm going to tell them..."

The Lieutenant's plan was solid and protected most of the information about the Phantom Unit. It had backup plans and backup plans for the backup plans, though he did not expose all of those to Harry, only giving him enough information so that he would know his role and feel comfortable about the whole thing.

When they were done talking about that, the Lieutenant kept Harry around for a while longer to ask for everything he knew about Voldemort -not much- and his return to the Wizarding World. He also quizzed him some more on his adventures at Hogwarts and on how he and his Muggle-born classmates had been introduced to magic. Finally, he released him with a renewed promise for a long talk on the Dursleys' behaviour -he called it abuse- and its consequences on Harry:

"I know you'd probably prefer to ignore the problem but it's not healthy. So we are going to talk about it, before the end of your suspension time."

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, drop the sir business, please! You know that the others are only calling me _boss_ as a joke, right? If you're not comfortable with that, how about you call me Benjamin?"

"Okay, si... Benjamin."

"Go, it's almost time for lunch anyway. That's enough serious business for the day, so you can tell Michelle I'm banning you from training today."

"I don't mind meditation so much..."

"Well, suit yourself then. Be gone, now, you squirt."

The last was said in an affectionate enough tone that Harry did not take offence. He joined his teammates on the way to lunch and they joked about Mohammed's new haircut, a classic mop-top worthy of the sixties and the Beatlemania. It was another thing separating the Phantom Unit from the rest of the soldiers sharing their compound, apart from the lack of formality: none of them sported the military buzz-cut -or chignon for the women. Harry had been rather fond of his hair, which had not grown back instantly after he had been shaved at Monmouth Academy, unlike when his aunt had tried to cut it, so he was glad that he would be allowed to regrow it to its undisciplined state.


	8. Chapter 8

They had the briefing on Voldemort the following day. Harry had heard talk about keeping Mary, Fergus and him out of it because of the crudeness of certain stories and pictures, but it was finally decided that he should attend and that the Lieutenant would censor the material so that no one would end up traumatised. In true teenager fashion, Fergus had thrown a fit about not being a child that needed protection but Benjamin had soon put an end to it by saying that if he was so eager to see the horrors of war he would be able to volunteer on the battlefront as soon as he was of age. Harry had discreetly agreed with the crabby teen and they had bonded over the fact that Mary, young as she was, _did_ need to be protected and so they would sacrifice themselves for her peace of mind.

Harry learnt more about the history of the Wizarding World during this two-hours briefing than during a full year of History of Magic classes. Benjamin went over everything that the wizards and witches who had still been part of the Wizarding World at the time -namely Muhammad, Kathryn and Terrence- had reported and what the Phantom Unit had done to try to help Muggles that had been victims of the Death Eaters. Harry had not realised Voldemort's followers had done so much damage to both the Muggle and the Wizarding World. No wonder people still feared him. The Lieutenant also explained the taboo on his name and why wizards and witches called him ridiculous things like You-Know-Who and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. At the time, this last term was quite literal: whoever pronounced the name Voldemort risked the immediate Apparition of Death Eaters to their vicinity.

Somehow, Benjamin had managed to gather intel on Voldemort's current situation. It appeared that the existence of the group was not entirely hidden from the Wizarding World, as they had contacts in the magical society of other countries, where discriminations against blood status where less prevalent.

Harry had learnt a bit about it when he had talked with Muhammad, a Muggle-born wizard who had gone to Hogwarts and was very resentful regarding the British Wizarding World because all he had been able to find despite his rather good NEWTs were menial jobs that no one else wanted to do. He had left the Wizarding World very disappointed and had sought employment among Muggles. But, with no qualifications and no school records, his only option had been the army. Benjamin Beaumont had found him precisely because he had not been able to provide school records when he had enlisted. The Phantom Unit kept an eye out for cases out of the ordinary and probed them during an interview to identify wizards and witches that had ended up in the Muggle army for lack of jobs in the magical society. It was a difficult process which yielded very little success, but that was how Muhammad, Lisa and Michelle had been recruited. The others had all been spotted because of their use of magic, accidental or not.

In any case, some previous members of the Phantom Unit had moved to foreign countries and rejoined the Wizarding World over there. They kept in touch, providing the team with information on what was going on abroad. They also had a man in the Ministry of Magic, a near-Squib who, after a short sojourn in the unit, had finally found a job as a paper-pusher for the Minister. All in all, the actual team was small but its network of alumni was triple its size and spanned twelve countries.

It was how Lieutenant Beaumont had acquired the information he was currently presenting to the group. A malicious wraith capable of possession had been spotted in Albania several times over the last few years but not during the previous one, and Benjamin hypothesised that it might have been Voldemort, as Quirrell had been possessed after touring Eastern Europe. The local authorities had not intervened because they were much more relaxed about Dark Magic than Britain and such things were nearly common and not a cause for concern. The watchword over there seemed to be that individuals not strong enough to protect themselves did not deserve to be wizards or witches, a stance Benjamin made his poor opinion of very clear.

Thanks to Harry, they knew that Voldemort had spent the last year at Hogwarts, but his whereabouts since then were unknown. The Albanian wraith had not been spotted since the Dark Lord's flight from the school, giving them no additional information.

The time came for a decision, and Benjamin put it to a vote. Should they involve the unit in the search for Voldemort or not? He reminded them that their existence would probably soon be known of the British Ministry of Magic, something he had explained during one of their daily meetings, so they would have the possibility to warn them about the threat since Harry's Headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, had not done so. A vast majority voted in favour, stricken by the dark portrayal Benjamin had done of the previous war.

They started to make plans. A group of five, including Muhammad, Brenda and Colin, as well as two volunteer alumni, would make their way to Albania to look for the reported wraith, and, if they could find it, determine if it was indeed Voldemort. They would also collect Harry's memories of his encounters with the Dark wizard in a Pensieve, a device used to collect and review memories, so that they would be able to confront the Ministry of Magic with them if their existence was revealed by whoever would come looking for Harry. Those most talented in battle magic would up their training to be ready should they find Voldemort. The few of the more scholarly members of their team would look into how he might have survived the Killing Curse, to make sure it did not happen again.

Harry was very excited to be a part of the fight against the man who had killed his parents, even if his part was limited to providing whatever information he had collected during his brief meetings with the madman. He liked having a purpose that went above and beyond doing well in classes -not that anyone before Benjamin and Joe had cared about that.

* * *

The day when Harry's suspension was supposed to end and his Transfiguration Professor was supposed to pick him up was a tense one for Harry.

He spent it doing meditation exercises with Michelle, as well as practising recognising when someone was trying to read his mind. He was quickly getting proficient at the later, while the former was still a struggle for him. He had progressed, as attested by the lack of any accidental magic, even minor, since he had joined the Phantom Unit, but he kept fighting against stray thoughts and was far from able to sense his magical core yet. Michelle was nonetheless happy with his progress so Harry's frustration was minimal.

No one came looking for Harry that day, but he and all the members of the team knew that it was just a matter of time. Most of them had their bags ready to leave at a moment's notice in case Monmouth Academy called.

Surprisingly, it took three nerve-wracking -for Harry at least- days before that happened. Be it because the Dursleys kept mute for that long about what they had done of their nephew, or because no one had the time to spare to make the trip to the military school in Wales, but Albus Dumbledore did not show up at Monmouth Academy before the fourth of October.

Harry was hopelessly trying to focus on his English activity book when Benjamin came to collect him and the other children of the team and called for an immediate regroup.

"Harry's previous Headmaster was at Monmouth. From what the Head there has told me of his behaviour, there is a high possibility that he read her mind, so despite her refusing to reveal any information, he might have an idea of where Harry is. Luckily for us, she does not know where our base is, so even if he did read her mind, it should take him at least a day to find us. More if he played by the rules and has to go back to fetch Harry's charming relatives so that Monmouth's Head will tell him where she sent Harry. In any case, most of you are leaving in two hours. Have fun on your little field trip, I'll keep you updated by phone. Remember, 'Nox's in charge, so behave. Wish us luck, and off you go!"

The unit erupted in "Good luck"'s and more than one teammate patted Harry's shoulder as they left. Before long, he was left with only Michelle, Brenda, Kathryn, Iain, James and Benjamin.

"Well, no use in sitting there like dolls for hours, let's go back to whatever we were doing before the news. Harry, I'd like to see you in my office, please."

Harry followed the officer and settled in the now familiar space. They had had a long talk about the Dursleys and their unacceptable treatment of him the previous week, which had left Harry sobbing as he slowly realised that someone should really have noticed and reacted much sooner. He was far from over the trauma, of course, but at least he acknowledged that he could not overlook the impact his shitty childhood had had over him, and in particular over the little importance he attached to his safety. He had also accepted to see a psychologist once the matter with Hogwarts had been resolved, even if he was not really convinced he needed the help. The talk had also had the effect of Harry realising what a difference having a trustworthy adult in his life made, and that the Lieutenant was willing to occupy this position.

"Harry, I know that we have discussed this already, but I have not directly asked you the question before: will you stand by my decision to remove you from Hogwarts? If asked, will you say that you are staying here of your own volition? I won't be angry no matter what you say, but I would like to know in advance."

Harry considered the question carefully. When Benjamin had told him that he could not go back to Hogwarts, he would have answered without hesitation that he would always say he prefered the wizarding school over the covert military unit. Now, after two more weeks with the team, he was not so sure anymore. Of course, he would still rather go back to his friends and the enchanted corridors of the castle, but life with the Phantoms was good to him. He was making new friends, he had the listening ear of a well-meaning adult, he was keeping up with Muggle schoolwork in addition to working on something that would improve his control over his magic, and there was no Snape to constantly belittle him, no rabid fans to look at him in wonder and whisper being his back at his every move. If he stayed, he would be able to learn wandless magic, something most Hogwarts students could only dream of -and who cared if it required an implant? Plus, he had come to really respect Benjamin and even if he disagreed with his decision, he understood where he was coming from. But was it enough to truly put his life into the officer's hands and accept that he was making the right choice for him?

Harry pondered this for a few minutes, Lieutenant Beaumont giving him the time he needed to come to a decision. Finally, he compromised:

"I'll say that it's my choice too, but I won't fight to stay if they force your hand..."

"I can work with that, thank you for your honesty. Why do you think they might force my hand? I'm officially your guardian now, they don't get to choose, I do."

"The Dursleys did not want me to go to Hogwarts, Uncle Vernon nailed the mailbox closed and even took us on a _holiday_ in a miserable shack on an island in the middle of nowhere to stop me from getting my acceptance letter. In the end, Professor Dumbledore sent Hagrid, he is the gatekeeper and he is _huge_ , to scare them into agreeing."

"Well, let me tell you Harry, whatever they come up with, I've seen worse already. I won't let anyone scare me into anything!"

"I know. But maybe they'll just take me and go..."

"We've talked about it, if it comes to this I will make a scandal at the Ministry and in the press. No matter how appreciated he is, I doubt even Albus Dumbledore can get away with abducting a child."

Harry shrugged, not entirely convinced, and not sure whether he wanted to be convinced or not.

"Don't worry, kiddo, we've got this."

Benjamin seemed to sense that Harry was still torn on the topic so he gave him a reassuring smile and sent him his way.

With Mary and Fergus gone, Harry was alone in the small break room they used to do their homework and he missed the company. He considered going to the training room to spend time with the few adults who had stayed, but at that time they would still be working so he would be disturbing them. Before he had time to brood too much, however, Iain, one of his teammates he had had the fewer interactions with, came in. He started preparing himself a cup of tea, but instead of leaving again when it was ready, he sat down next to Harry.

"Hanging on alright, there?"

Harry shrugged.

"Did anyone tell you how I ended up with the Phantoms?"

"No, they didn't."

"Well, I didn't have the happiest of childhood. My parents died when I was three and I had a string of foster homes after that, some okay, some pretty terrible. I had a lot of accidental magic that no one could explain so I was labelled a _problem child_ and processed again and again by the system. And then, one day, one family stood out of the crowd."

Harry was hanging on Iain's every word, eager to know the rest of the story. He could relate to nobody wanting you because of your difference, it was what he had live through with the Dursleys.

"They were one of a kind, the Kwans. King, the father, was half Vietnamese and he had become a single father after his wife, Ida, who had been Wolof, died in childbirth. They had had three adoptive children and two natural ones by that time, so it was a rather extensive family, but they made it work. By the time I was sent to them, their eldest was twenty-one, their youngest twelve and I fifteen. I was an angry young man, unwilling to open up to anyone, but King flew all over my barriers and into my heart. That man was kindness personified and nothing you could do ruffled his feathers. He was the first in a long time to believe me when I said that I didn't understand what was happening whenever I got in trouble with my accidental magic. I think he was even a bit intrigued.

Anyway, one day the shit hit the fan, about a year after I had been put into their care. I was out with Jordy, the second youngest and first natural child. No one care who was adopted, who was natural and who was fostered in that family, I'm only pointing it out because it matters to the rest of the story. We were hanging out by the grocery shop, it was getting late but King wasn't home so we knew we wouldn't get in trouble. A man came over to us and started insulting Jordy, talking trash about his mixed origins and insinuating that the end of slavery had been a terrible thing for humanity. Jordy tried to let him rave because King had taught him to meet hate with indifference, but the trash started to get physical, saying he'd teach him to respect his betters and all that bullshit. I tried to help my foster brother and called out for someone to call the police but it went so fast that no one would have been able to do anything. The man pulled out a knife on us and gutted Jordy several times before stepping away. There was so much blood and Jordy was not responding to my shakes, I lost it. For the first time in my life I voluntarily called on my magic and set it on the aggressor. I pushed him and he exploded. Literally. There were pieces of flesh and brain littering the street and even more blood splattered on the windows.

The coppers showed up not long after, with paramedics. They managed to save Jordy by the skin of the teeth but of course, there was nothing to be done about the attacker. They picked me up because there was nobody else to blame, and because some neighbours had said they had me pushed the man because he was blown up. They had to release me pretty quickly because no one could really conceive how an unarmed kid could have made a man _explode_. The Kwans tried to take me back, but the social worker insisted that they had to take care of Jordy so I ended up in a children's home again. At least until Lieutenant Pigott, he was the unit's boss at the time, died a few years back of throat cancer, came and spirited me away after only four days. Turns out they had run a story in the papers about Jordy and the blown up man. Mostly about the blown up idiot, to be honest, though. They didn't care so much about the hate crime as about the mystery. Anyway, Paul, Lieutenant Pigott, he took me in and taught me about magic and all that stuff and I agreed to join the unit. He even talked me into seeing an army shrink, sworn to secrecy and all, to work through the trauma of having killed someone."

Harry could see a hint when he heard one.

"Benjamin's done the same for me. Not about killing a man, though I guess he's not too happy about me having had to do that either, but about the Dursleys. I said I'd give it a try."

"It helps, you'll see. Maybe not at first, because it takes some time to trust them enough to say the meaningful stuff, but stick to it, okay?"

Harry nodded. It made sense, he wasn't going too keen about talking his heart out to a complete stranger, but strangers didn't remain so forever.

"Your school is my Kwan family, isn't it?"

Harry looked at Iain in the eyes, surprised that the wizard had guessed how much Hogwarts meant to him. After all, he hadn't talked much about why he wanted to go back to the others, never mind to Iain with whom he had barely exchanged a handful of words before that day.

"I guess so. It's just, I really liked it there, it was the first time I felt at home anywhere. And I understand why Benjamin doesn't want me to go back, the Professors really messed up last year, especially Headmaster Dumbledore, but I miss it something terrible. Even if you folks have been super welcoming, it's not about that..."

"I'm not upset that you'd think that, don't worry. I used to miss King and his brood too, you know, I missed them for a long time. I could visit, of course, but it's not the same when you have to hide most of your life for people that matter to you. Though for you it shouldn't be as bad, at least you can talk to your friends about magic."

Iain gave Harry a small encouraging smile, which Harry mirrored. For some reason, the depressing story had alleviated some of his sadness and anxiety.

* * *

It turned out that Dumbledore had not looked into the Monmouth Academy Head's mind the first time, because he was back there the following day with Petunia Dursley. The woman gave them Lieutenant Beaumont's phone number, as had been settled on between them. Benjamin arranged for the wizard and Harry's aunt to visit the compound the very next day. He was self-satisfied as he relayed the news to Harry, happy that everything followed his best-situation plan for the moment.

On the morning of the sixth of October, Harry dressed up in his uniform, as per the Lieutenant's instructions, and reported to his office at ten on the dot. Together, they waited for their visitors to clear out the entrance gate and to be brought to the unit's building by Kathryn. Harry was fidgeting so much that Benjamin offered for a drop of calming draught in his tea, but Harry refused, not wanting anyone to be able to say that he had been drugged if Professor Dumbledore took the news badly -which Harry was almost sure he would do.

The ancient wizard had turned up in a purple three-piece suit complete with a yellow tie and glaring Gryffindor red socks. Harry's eyes nearly bugged out at the sight. If that was the man's idea of inconspicuous, he did not want to see what he would consider flashy. His aunt Petunia was following with far more demure clothing and her trademark sour-lemon face plastered on. They met in the break room Harry usually did his schoolwork in with Mary and Fergus, as Benjamin's office was far too small to accommodate four people, even if one was only a short twelve-year-old. Once everyone was seated and nursing a cup of tea, Lieutenant Beaumont tackled the issue head-on.

"I believe you are here to get Harry back to Hogwarts. That is not going to happen. The army now has guardianship over Harry, as you must know madam if you have taken the time to read your mail. By proxy, it means that I am the one taking the decisions over Harry's life now, and I have determined that he will be safer staying here. I understand if you have objections, I am willing to hear them out, but I doubt you will be able to change my mind."

Harry was impressed by Benjamin's public persona, far from his usually kind and easy-going manner. He was at the moment every bit of a strict army officer and Petunia at least seemed to be just as stricken as Harry. However, she recovered from her surprise faster than Professor Dumbledore and jumped on the occasion to clarify the only thing that mattered to her.

"We received something to this effect, yes, but weren't sure what to make of the official jargon. Does that mean he is out of our hands for good? You won't be forcing him on us during holidays or anything like that?"

"No one is going to force your nephew on anyone anymore, madam."

The Lieutenant's disgust at her choice of words was evident by his tense tone.

"Well, if I am not his guardian anymore, you don't need me here for this discussion, do you?"

"Indeed. There is a bus to London leaving in a few minutes from the compound at eleven, if you do not want to wait for us to be done. I imagine you came here through magical means of transportation."

Both Petunia and Albus Dumbledore spluttered at the casual mention of magic. The sharp woman stood up, obviously eager to leave the company of the wizards as fast as possible now that she had been given leave to do so, and she exited the room with barely a parting word. Harry was glad to see her go and that part of his life out of the door, but now they had to deal with their major contender.

Professor Dumbledore's first action was unexpectedly to turn to Harry and tell him, in a disappointed version of his grand-fatherly voice:

"Harry, you know about the Statute of Secrecy. You will get into a lot of trouble if you make a habit of telling uninvolved Muggles about magic."

Harry frowned at his past Headmaster: who did he take him for?

"Harry did not let the cat out of the bag, sir, please do not scold him about this. He was sent here from Monmouth Academy because of several episodes of accidental magic and I was quick to inform him that we already knew about magic and so he had nothing to hide from us."

"Then, if you know about magic, you understand why he has to come back to Hogwarts. Young wizards and witches need to learn to control their powers so that they do not accidentally use them anymore."

And so the game began. Harry knew how much Benjamin was willing to tell Dumbledore, and how far he was willing to go to keep Harry with the Phantoms, so they would now see if that was enough.

"He can do that here. He would not be the first."

"It seems you have me at a disadvantage, here, Lieutenant. You appear to know about the Wizarding World and Hogwarts, but I know nothing of you and how you came to that knowledge."

"You wouldn't. We are a highly guarded secret, even among the army. The only reason I am willing to entrust you with some information today is that I am aware that should I keep mum, you would attempt to take Harry away by force. That said, the Phantom Unit is a military unit investigating paranormal phenomena and training a small taskforce to intervene in civil disasters. We know of what you call magic because some of our members have joined after accomplishing their secondary education at your school. However, we don't discriminate between forms of powers. Harry will be able to train with us, as most of our members have done."

"No offence intended, sir, but Hogwarts is the premier wizarding school in the country. Surely you would not deny Harry a quality education if you have his best interest at heart."

Harry bristled at the innuendo but Benjamin did not give him time to protest.

"I don't think the quality of education matters much if the students are constantly put into life-threatening situations. After all, it is quite difficult to attend lessons when one is dead, though I am aware that one of your teachers is succeeding in doing just that."

"Now, now, I don't know what Harry had told you to give you this impression, but we take the safety of our students very seriously."

"Obviously, if eleven-year-olds can encounter trolls, three-headed dogs and possessed professors, all because you are using the school as a glorified bank vault."

Benjamin was clearly letting his anger seep through his words now.

"All this happened under very unusual circumstances. I can assure you that no student has been gravely injured, or worse, killed, during my tenure."

"That is only because magic can fix most injuries... And sheer dumb luck, in case of that troll, from Harry's account. How many students have you had to send to the infirmary with injuries which would have been fatal or incapacitating be it not for magic? And you were the one to warn the students not to frequent one of the corridors of your school if they did not wish for a _very painful death_. I think this speaks quite clearly of the fact that you were aware of the danger you have been exposing your pupils to."

Again, Dumbledore directed a very disappointed look to Harry, as if to convey how sad he was that the boy had seen appropriate to tattle to an outsider.

"I didn't think it was a secret, sir..."

"It wasn't, of course, Harry, but I didn't want people to start thinking Hogwarts was unsafe when, in fact, we took only very controlled risks."

The Lieutenant jumped on the occasion to question the formulation.

"If you call hosting a three-headed blood-thirsty dog, to mention only it, behind a door that a trio of eleven-year-olds was able to unlock a controlled risk, I wouldn't like to be confronted to any uncontrolled risk you could take."

Dumbledore tried to retort something but Benjamin was far from done.

"Here, sir, we will ask nothing of Harry than him trying his best with his schoolwork and his magical training. We will protect his physical and mental health to the best of our abilities: no detentions in a forest populated with lethal creatures, no deadly obstacle races, no keeping an artefact attracting Dark mages around. And if anything happens, we will ensure that he is provided with proper care, again, for his physical _and_ mental health. I still cannot understand how you could send him back to his relatives after he had killed a man, with no more than a pat on the shoulder. And don't get me started on his relatives, your faculty cannot have missed the signs of abuse, or they don't deserve the title of Professors."

The Lieutenant had not raised his voice once during his tirade but his tone was cold and shaming. Dumbledore had the grace to look chastened for a second before he re-entered the fray.

"I admit that we may have underestimated the resourcefulness of Harry and his friends when designing the safeguards around the prohibited corridor. I truly believed that the warning would be enough, but apparently, it did not suffice to stop their young and curious minds. I can promise you that it will not happen again. We will keep a close eye on them this year."

"Please do not make their endangerment the children's fault. At that age, if there is an adventure to be had they will not think twice, it's normal."

"Of course, that is not what I meant. But be assured that Harry will be perfectly safe in Hogwarts from now on."

"I can hear your faith in this assertion, but I am still far from convinced. Unless there is a way you can prove to me that you will do what is necessary to ensure the safety of all your students, this discussion is over. Harry will remain with us."

Dumbledore paused, half-surprised that his words had been rejected and half-considering his options. He cast a thoughtful glance to Harry, who fidgeted under the scrutiny.

"There is something that I would like to discuss with you, but I don't believe it suitable for our young friend. Maybe, Harry, you could go work on your homework for a few minutes?"

Harry looked at Benjamin for confirmation. When the officer nodded, he stood up and shuffled out of the room, not all too happy to be excluded from the conversation but confident that Lieutenant Beaumont would relay the gist of it to him later. They had discussed this possibility when preparing for the meeting and the older man had assured Harry that he would not keep him in the dark regarding any information Dumbledore might give him on his student. The boy greatly appreciated the transparency policy Benjamin had for the unit, after growing up believing a lie about how his parents had died.

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

Instead of doing homework as Dumbledore had suggested, Harry settled in the recreational room where Iain was reading -they had cancelled all training for as long as it took for Benjamin to get rid of Dumbledore- and they played a few rounds of cards. Harry kept losing badly as his mind was on the discussion between his previous Headmaster and his new mentor, but Iain was graceful about it and just kept dealing.

"Harry?"

In the door frame stood Michelle, dressed in her usual morning yogi garb. As it was not specific to magic, it had been decided that physical exercise and meditation were safe even in the presence of magical visitors, so the women had decided to make a morning of yoga.

"The boss is calling for you."

"Thank you."

Apologising to Iain about the interrupted game -an apology that was brushed away easily- Harry stood up and walked back to the break room. Dumbledore was still here, to his surprise, and looking very unhappy.

"My dear boy, it appears that your new guardian and I have not been able to reach an agreement. But I would like to hear from you before I go. Do _you_ want to go back to Hogwarts? I know that you considered it your home, just a few months ago..."

Harry did not hesitate. Not once had Dumbledore apologised to him in the previous discussion when Benjamin had pointed out the wrong the Headmaster had caused to him. Maybe Hogwarts was a wonderful place, but he could not trust he would be safe there. So he would have to content himself with learning magic with the other Phantoms -which would not be too much of a hardship from what he knew- and seeing his friends during the holidays.

"I think I'd rather stay here, Professor. It's not that I don't like Hogwarts anymore, but last year was rather... intense, and I'm doing well here."

The moment he looked in the old wizard's eyes to convey that he was telling the truth, he felt the pressure against his mind that he had learned to associate with someone trying to read his thoughts over the last week. He immediately averted his eyes: if Professor Dumbledore looked into his mind, he would see that he was telling the truth, but he would also see the secrets of the Phantom Unit that Benjamin had chosen to hide from him.

Dumbledore spent a few more seconds trying to catch Harry's eyes again before admitting defeat.

"Very well. I guess this is my cue to go, then. I wish you well Harry, and if you ever wish to come back to Hogwarts, there will always be a place for you there."

"Wait!"

Harry stopped the wizard before he could step out of the door, wanting to ask about something that had been bugging him for the last few weeks.

"Did you receive my message from the Grangers?"

"I'm afraid not, my boy. When did you send such a message? I went to the Weasleys and the Grangers in the hope that they might have heard from you when your aunt first refused to tell me where she had sent you, both they both told me that they had not heard from you."

"When I was in Monmouth Academy. It's okay, the letter must have gotten lost."

It was at least less depressing that what he had thought, that the Grangers or the Headmaster had ignored his call for help.

"That's very unlucky."

It was obvious that the Hogwarts Headmaster was thinking that if he had gotten to Harry sooner, the boy would not have been adopted into the Phantom Unit and would have come back to Hogwarts. Harry himself wished that the message hadn't gotten lost: he would not have had to suffer through a full week at Monmouth and the fear of having words carved into his chest by a bunch of blood-thirsty brutes.

Dumbledore took his leave, Kathryn bringing him back to the entrance in one of the compound's jeeps. Benjamin gestured for Harry to sit down and refilled his now-empty teacup.

"So, what do you think?"

"He's not happy about it and I don't think we've heard the last of it."

"Yes, I've got the same impression. I wonder if he is going to come back himself, maybe with friends of yours to try and convince you to go back, or if he will involve the Ministry of Magic. We'll see. Do you want to know what we discussed while you were not here?"

"Yes!"

"I'd appreciate if you didn't let him know I told you when you see him next time. He seemed very intent on you not learning about it until you were older, so I doubt this would go well with him. I had to worm this information out of him as it is, he seemed convinced that secrecy was the key to whatever is going on with this Voldemort character. Anyway, there is a prophecy that he believes is about you and Voldemort. It speaks of a baby that would be the only one with the power to defeat Voldemort and that "neither can live while the other survives." Of course, it's impossible to know for a second-hand account if it was a real prophecy or a fake but even in the case that it's a true one, there are many ways to interpret it. His is that you will kill Voldemort definitively at one point or the other, or die trying, and that you are the only one able to do it. Mine would be that you have already defeated the Dark Lord when you were one, or it might even be about someone else. In any case, try not to worry to much about it, alright? Prophecies are often self-fulfilling and I won't have you ruining your childhood because of something that might or might not happen one day. This is something that I would like you to discuss with your therapist, when we get to arrange one for you, okay?"

Harry nodded, not to eager to discuss anything with a shrink but willing to abide by Benjamin's rules if it got him more information.

"Why did he tell you about it, if he wanted to keep it secret?"

"Well, his rational was that since there was this prophecy, and Voldemort knew at least part of it since it was it that drove him to target your family when you were younger, Voldemort is probably going to keep coming after you, which was why you needed to remain at Hogwarts where Dumbledore could protect you from him. Of course, I pointed out that he had not been able to protect you much the two times you had encountered the Dark wizard at school but he did not seem to take the hint.

He also tried to convince me to make you go back to your relatives one month every year to renew what he called blood wards, a magic born of your mother's sacrifice for you and that is supposed to protect you from anyone wishing you harm. According to him, it is the same magic that let you burn your Defense Professor to ashes last summer."

Harry frowned. So was that why the Headmaster had insisted he go back to his relatives for the holidays?

"Do not worry, I told him in no uncertain terms that even if those criminals wanted you back, you would not set foot there ever again. However, it made me think that we _will_ need good wards to protect the compound, just in case. We have never bothered because laying low was the best way not to get noticed, but now that there is a good chance he will notify officials of the magical society of our existence, wards will become necessary. But that's not something for you to worry about.

Now, on to the really fun part. You will never guess what he pulled out of his hat when he realised he was not going to convince me that Hogwarts was safer that our team for you."

Playing along, Harry asked:

"What did he say?"

"Well, apparently, something has been happening at Hogwarts while you were away. They suspect that something called the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, how and by whom they don't know. Anyway, this Chamber was supposed to be a mythical place hidden in the castle by one of the school's founders and hosting some kind of monster. Why a school founder would hide a monster inside their creation, I have no idea, but anyway... A few decades ago, the Chamber was opened and a student died. They expelled the supposed perpretrator but Dumbledore thinks that they got the person wrong, especially now that it's being opened again."

"What does it have to do with me?"

"That's where his argument gets really laughable. According to him, the Chamber can only be accessed by someone called a Parseltongue, someone who can speak to snakes. It's a talent that's incredibly rare in magical societies, again, according to him, but he believes you might have gotten it from the rebound of the spell Voldemort cast to try to kill you, as Voldemort was the last known Parseltongue in Britain. So he would like you to be at Hogwarts this year to find this Chamber and close it again. The fact that he was telling me an unknown monster willing to kill students had been let loose in the school when not ten minutes before he had been trying to convince me that Hogwarts was the safest place for you did not even appear to register to him. He is a very odd man, your ex-Headmaster, very lost into his own, wraped conception of the world."

Harry's opinion of Professor Dumbledore had just taken a nose dive.

"Why isn't he closing the school, if it's so dangerous?"

"I asked him the same but he said that for the moment, they had no proof it wasn't just a bad joke from a student having heard from the previous disaster through their parents. So he won't admit that there's a problem, but he still wants you to come deal with it. It goes without saying that you won't be setting foot in Hogwarts as long as that crackpot is Headmaster..."

Harry nodded. After what he had just learned, it sounded very reasonable. Maybe he would write Ron and Hermione to tell them about the monster, just in case Dumbledore had not told the school. Though that might be a bad idea because then Ron would want to go looking for it and Hermione would not be able to resist the prospect of learning something new. But if Harry did not tell them, and they came to harm because Dumbledore refused to close the school for some foolish reason, he would never forgive himself.

"Benjamin, can I write my friends now that Professor Dumbledore knows about the unit? I promise I won't tell them anything that you haven't told him."

"Sure, I don't see why not. We don't want to bring the regular soldiers' attention with owls flying around, though, so you'll have to find a way to forward your post. I think Kathryn and Terrence still have friends in the magical society, ask them what they do for mail."

"Thank you."

"No hardship. Give it a few days, though, I'd like to see what Dumbledore comes up with next before you involve your friends."

Harry acquiesced and downed his teacup, preparing to leave when one more question crossed his mind.

"Does that mean I get to have an implant for wandless magic?"

"Well, considering your ex-Headmaster has not offered to give you back your wand, it's either that or a shopping trip to the magical society, which I would like to avoid because it would raise a plethora of questions. Do you want one?"

"Yes! It's kind of cool looking like you don't need a focus to do magic."

The Lieutenant laughed.

"I guess it is, when one has been told that wanded magic was the only way to go. Alright, I'll arrange for you to visit Doctor Seddon, she's our specialist in charge of them. It might take a few weeks, what with the unknown of Dumbledore and the Ministry, so keep working on your meditation in the meantime. Your efforts won't be lost."

Harry grumbled a bit at that, he wanted to go back to doing magic already, but he understood the need to be cautious if they did not want the Wizarding World to learn about the Phantom Unit way of casting spells. He left Benjamin and joined the small group in the training room for a short physical exercise session. While their regimen was nothing like the regular army's one, they did try to all keep in shape, partly to stay inconspicuous and partly because there was a link between physical and magical power.

 


	10. Chapter 10

The very next day, they were visited by a group of officials of the Ministry of Magic. Harry was not privy to what was said during their meeting with Benjamin, but a lot of yelling could be overheard even from the training room where Michelle was teaching him a new yoga routine. The representatives left after two hours, seemingly in a huff. Harry was obviously not the only one feeling curious because the others in the room kept glancing at the door, waiting for Benjamin to appear and update them on how the meeting had gone. It could not have gone too badly because they had not stormed into the training room to take Harry by force, but that did not mean that the Phantom Unit was not in danger.

Finally, Benjamin joined them on the mats and casually stated:

"For once, it's a good thing that the magical society's governing body is so fossilised and careless about procedures because I knew their laws better than they did. Thank you, Kathryn, by the way, for the fantastic law books you managed to obtain."

Said Kathryn rolled her eyes and complained:

"Oh, come on, boss, you're killing us here, tell us what happened."

The youngest of the group, James, Brenda and Harry, nodded their head vigorously to this statement while the others, more mature, simply waited the Lieutenant out.

"They were baffled by our existence, of course, and strongly argued that we should reintegrate the magical society. When I finally thought I had managed to convey that, as British citizens, we were free to live our lives outside of the _Wizarding World_ as long as we abided by their Statute of Secrecy laws, they started going on and on about how Harry could not be seen quitting Hogwarts. They take you very seriously as a symbol of peace and they seem convinced that the world will collapse on their ears should you disappear from the public eye. I pointed out that you had been out of it for most of your life but there really was no reasoning with them. End of the story, they did not believe me when I said we had the support of the Prime Minister and the Queen, so they are going to try and appeal to them, getting them to force us to be part of the magical society because of our powers."

"How can you be sure they won't succeed," Iain asked.

"Because the very reason why we exist and are protected from normal army protocols is that the Queen, the Prime Minister and the Chief of the General Staff -that's the head of the army Harry- all agree that there should always be a small contingent of magical practitioners outside of the magical society, so that the non-magical world is not completely without defence and understanding should the magical one start waging war against it. We are a safety measure that I very much doubt they will be willing to renounce to."

Benjamin stood up and brushed off his pants.

"Anyway, I'll give a full debrief of the situation once the others are back. I see no reason to keep them away now that this has been cleared. We will set wards around the compound to warn us if any magical person comes close. It will be good to have the full team around again, the last few days were too quiet."

He was going to leave when he remembered.

"Oh, and Harry, legally you have a right to your wand since you were never expelled from Hogwarts, and your status is one of a homeschooled student. But they are holding it hostage for the moment, hoping to convince us that you need to go back. I'm letting them believe that we have a stock of used wands at our disposition as we discussed, but they know any borrowed wand would be far less efficient for you than your chosen one, so they're hoping you'll get frustrated."

* * *

Harry woke up very excited on the twenty-first of October. After more than three months of restrictions, he would finally be able to do magic again! Today was the day he was going to get his focus implant from Dr Seddon.

The last two weeks had been quite uneventful, now that the threat of being forcefully removed to Hogwarts was gone. The Ministry had sent representatives twice after their first visit, and Dumbledore had sent a letter -the owl had made Benjamin grumble about conspicuous old wizards- but none of them had managed to get the Lieutenant to move one iota from his positions. As far as the Wizarding World was concerned, they were a group of outcast wizards, witches and weirdoes with unexplained paranormal abilities that messed around with used wands and were fundamentally harmless. The thing that had most bothered the Ministry drones, apparently, was the prospect that some Muggle-borns had escaped their radar despite having enough accidental magic to be found by the Phantom Unit.

Harry had found out a way to write his friends through Kathryn: one of her Squib's acquaintances ran a small service forwarding mail from the wizarding owl post to the Muggle snail mail and back. It was used mostly by Muggle-borns to communicate with their families, but Kathryn and Terrence used it to keep in touch with friends they had made in the Hogwarts. The kind witch had also helped him word his letters so that he would not invite too many questions from his friends. A few were inevitable, and Harry knew that he would have to answer more than once that something or other was not his secret to tell.

He had received an answer after only two days, a short, whining letter from Ron -who was he going to play chess and skive off his homework with- and a long-winded letter full of questions from Hermione. He was really glad that he would be able to keep in contact with them, even if he still missed being able to see them. He had told them about the monster in the Chamber of Secrets and Hermione had been quite horrified by the news. She admitted to Harry that she was not sure if she should tell her parents, for fear that they would pull her out of Hogwarts, when she really wanted to stay, but she acknowledged they might be right to do so in the circumstances. Harry had written back that he understood since he had been faced with a rather similar choice, but that she should take care of herself in any case.

However, none of this was on the young wizard's mind as he went through his morning routine and walked to breakfast with a spring in his step. The good-natured teasing his good mood was bringing from the team only drew a smile on his face. He loved magic and he could not wait to be able to do some again.

After breakfast, Benjamin herded him into one of the standard jeeps and they were off to London. The Lieutenant had warned him that he probably would not be able to master the implant as easily as he had his wand, but nothing could dent Harry's cheerful spirit. He sang with the radio and joked with Joe, who had insisted on accompanying them.

Dr Seddon's practice was a clean, spacious remodelled flat. They barely waited before being shown to the operation room -Joe was stuck in the waiting room as he was not Harry's guardian. It was Harry's first time at a Muggle doctor apart from a couple of occurrences where the school had required he got some shots when he was a kid. He was rather fascinated by the apparatus they had lying everywhere, for the strong light to the plastic gloves to the scalpels.

Dr Seddon was a thin, almost skinny woman with an eerily wide smile. He took an instant dislike to her when she promised him a lollipop if he _was a good boy_. He was not five years old, thank you very much!

She went on to explain the procedure in small, simplified words that had Harry grinding his teeth but Benjamin's calming hand on his shoulder kept him from making a scathing comment about her methods.

After the long explanation, she sat him down in a medical armchair with cushioned arms and disinfected his right hand. She warned him to look away -which he stubbornly did not- before stinking a needle into the back of his hand, pumping anaesthetic into it. They gave it a few minutes to take effect, Benjamin and her having a discussion on the improvements she had made to the last generation of implants over Harry's head. When he had lost all sensation in his fingers and palm, apart from a general numbness, she sliced the skin on the top of his hand opened -again Harry declined the offer to look away. A bit nauseous but fascinated by the process, he witnessed her sliding a small cylinder of wood, no more than half a millimetre wide and one millimetre long, under his skin, before she tapped his hand with her own fingers, murmuring "Episkey".

"How about you try it out? I made it a holly sheath, like Benjamin said your wand was, and a unicorn hair for the core, very classic, as I did not have any phoenix feather."

Looking at Benjamin for confirmation that he was allowed to try out a spell, Harry raised his hand and cast "Wingardium Leviosa" with the intent of lifting the lollipop the doctor had left lying on her desk. It fidgeted for a second but disappointingly was not lifted into the air.

"A good result for a first try. You will have to work specifically into channelling your magic into the focus. Implants are not choosy like wands, but they require more work at the beginning."

Despite having been warned by Benjamin, Harry was a bit disappointed. It felt like being back at the beginning of First Year again, when he struggled to get even the slightest effect out of his wand. The Lieutenant gave him a commiserating pat on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, you have all the time in the world to make it work."

Harry frowned at the declaration which was far from helping his mood. He did not want to have all the time in the world, he wanted it to work now! And if it made him sound like a spoiled five-year-old, so be it...

They walked back to the waiting area to collect Joe. Harry tried to trash his reward lollipop in the first garbage can but Joe was prompt to save it, claiming that one could never have too many sweets. Harry did not dare comment that maybe that was why the guy seemed to be on a permanent sugar high.

Harry's grumpiness slowly evaporated over the ride back to the compound as Benjamin and Joe kept relating their own training when they had first gotten their implant. According to them, Harry was lucky to even have gotten a reaction out of the lollipop when he tried to levitate it. Neither of them had had experience with a wand before they had joined the Phantom, and at the time they did use used wands, which were far from optimal to learn with. Benjamin promised Harry that he would be working on finding his magical core and channelling it through the implant with Michelle from that day on, instead of regular meditation.

"Won't Michelle mind that she has to babysit me every afternoon for so long?"

"I don't see why she would. You know that most of the group has reached their magical potential and now they are mostly refining points of details and keeping in shape. Most of their time is spent helping younger or more powerful members train like Michelle is doing with you and sometimes Mary and Terrence. She is the one most qualified to help you until you are comfortable working with your implant because she is our resident meditation expert _and_ she went through a similar process of learning first with an attuned wand and then with the implant."

"Ah, okay."

The conversation came to a pause after this, Joe singing enthusiastically to the radio, with Harry joining for the songs he knew and Benjamin refusing to by pretending that he could not sing and focus on the road at the same time. They stopped for a sandwich on the way and reached the compound in the middle of the afternoon. Michelle immediately stole Harry away for training.

"So, how did it go?"

"Well, I guess, but I couldn't manage to cast a _Wingardium Leviosa_ , even though it's the first spell I learnt at Hogwarts!"

"That is to be expected, young Padawan. Don't look so down. We'll have you up and casting spells in no time! Now, take a seat."

They sat down, cross-legged and facing each other, as usual, in a quiet corner of the training room.

"Do you remember when I said that meditation could be used to find your magical core instead of focusing on your breathing?"

"Yes..."

"We are going to do the same as usual but you are going to concentrate on your sensations when you try to perform magic. Here is your target," she explained placing a pebble on the floor between them. "Cast whatever you feel like at it, and focus on what you feel. Rinse and repeat until you get a handle on where the magic is coming from and how it travels through your body."

Harry took a deep breath and settled into his position. It was different trying to do something while focussing on his meditation, so it took him at least a dozen frustrating tries before he managed to catch a glimpse of what Michelle meant by finding where the magic was coming from. It was definitively originating from a specific part of his chest. However, he got fed up of casting the same spell over and over again with little result before he reached the goal his tutor had set.

"Stop, stop," Michelle interrupted when he started grinding his teeth in frustration. "I know that it's not easy, but you won't get anywhere if you let your annoyance dominate you. Let's call it a day, okay? Some things are better not rushed."

Relieved to be done for the day, Harry didn't wait for her to tell him twice before he scampered to the recreational room. Neither Mary or Fergus were done with their own training and the adults were all reading or playing cards, so he launched Super Mario Bross in solo mode. In his few weeks with the Phantoms, he had progressed immensely at the game and at the couple others the team had available, but that was not saying much considering where he was starting from.

He had been playing for nearly an hour when Kathryn entered the room, looking for him.

"Harry, you have mail!"

Excited, he paused his game and jumped to grab the letters in the kind woman's hand, making her laugh.

"Calm down, tyke, they are not going anywhere!"

Trying to tone down his agitation, he walked with measured steps to the dorms and climbed on his bed. As usual, there were two letters, from each of his friends. The small note from his other ex-roommates, Neville, Seamus and Dean, that had been added to the envelope, was, however, a welcome surprise. They had written that they missed him and that they hoped he would reconsider and join Hogwarts again, but that if he did not they wished him the best. It was a bit impersonal but representative of their relationship: while they had spent many nice moments together playing Exploding Snap or other, they were far from being close, not like he was with Ron and Hermione.

He opened Ron's missive first, knowing it would most likely be shorter and less serious than Hermione's. He was right: Ron complained yet again about him not coming back but sounded interested by the concept of video games, asking if it would be possible for him to visit the compound during the holidays -Harry would sadly have to crush his hopes but maybe they could find a way to play at the Burrow- before ranting for almost all of his letter about Snape and his still-evil ways. He finished with news of the Chuddley Cannons' results.

He had been right to guess that Hermione's would be more serious. She had more questions about his training and meditations -questions he would have to ask Michelle about as he did not have the faintest idea as to the answer- then she went on and on about everything they had been learning in class, including the full list of essays they had been assigned -probably in the hope that Harry would keep up with his schoolwork. Harry was a bit jealous that they got to learn all those new spells when he was stuck at the basics again. The Disarming Charm, in particular, sounded damn useful, even if they had only been learning the theory and not practising it. Harry would ask Benjamin if he could teach it to him later. It was sure to be a real advantage in a fight, especially since Harry would not need a wand anymore.

Hermione had also written to her parents about the Chamber of Secrets and the supposed monster living in it, stressing that for now, they had no idea whether it was a hoax or a real threat. They had answered, after corresponding with Professor Dumbledore, that they would not pull her out unless something happened that proved she was in danger, but that she was to inform them the moment something like this occurred because they did not trust the Headmaster to do so. Hermione complained about that last fact, convinced that the old wizard knew what he was doing, but inwardly Harry agreed with them. The Professor was at least slightly deluded if not outright careless, when it came to the safety of his students, as Benjamin kept pointing out to Harry.

This reminded Harry that they had gotten some news from the Ministry of Magic the previous day. The Lieutenant had been trying to convince them that Voldemort was back, at least in wraith form, but they believed neither Harry nor Dumbledore on the topic. In debrief, they had voted on whether to tell the Hogwarts Headmaster about their search for Voldemort, in hope of joining efforts. The result had been quite balanced but in the end the no's had won. Involving Dumbledore would force them to hide part of their powers, and while the Ministry of Magic's support would have been a real boon, there was a big question on what the powerful but unreliable wizard could do to help them.

On the Voldemort's front, they had also gotten news recently from Muhammad, Brenda and Colin, who had gone to Albania to look for him. They had found the emplacements in which the wraith they suspected was Voldemort had been spotted and had reported that, while they could not attest to its identity, the ghost-like entity had left behind it a trail of strongly flavoured Dark magic. Harry and Mary had giggled when Benjamin had reported their words because they could not imagine magic having a flavour, but Michelle had explained that some types of magic called on the senses, the same as they would be able to feel their magic inward when they meditated. Fergus had snottily declared that _he_ had always been able to feel his magic, getting Mary to stick her tongue at him.

They were stuck for the moment in their search for Voldemort as they could not go all over the world looking for that distinctive _flavour_ of magic and hoping to stumble upon it. Brenda and James, who were gifted at spell-crafting, would try to device a way to direct their search with the magical imprint the small group of envoys had taken in Albania. In the meantime, they were continuing to research ways in which Voldemort could have survived the Killing Curse, to no avail. For this, Michelle, Mohammed, Terrence and Mary -the older one- were regularly slipping into the French magical society's public library. They were the only ones who could go as only they spoke French, and no other nearby countries had a public library that did not require registration, something they wanted to avoid at all cost in case someone tried to track them. The process already had them, and in particular Mohammed, grinding their teeth as they had to pretend they were standard wizarding citizens when they went to take the International Floo to Paris. For the occasion, they had had to owl-order a set of robes each. Mary had been quite in awe of the old-fashioned garments but the adults were heavily resenting the need for disguise.

Harry rolled over on his bed, grabbing some paper and pen from his bedside table. He wished he was allowed to share the news of the search for Voldemort with his friends. Ron would be really excited about it and Hermione would be sure to have good ideas to contribute. But he understood the need for secrecy, especially now that they had decided not to involve Dumbledore. Plus, as Benjamin regularly reminded him, he was too young to worry himself about this stuff, the adults were better equipped to do so and it was their job. Harry was starting to believe he truly meant it, not like the professors at Hogwarts who just wanted you to leave them alone and not bother them with your problems.

Thinking about that reminded Harry that he would have his first appointment with an army psychologist soon. Benjamin had told him that he would not need to keep secrets from the health professional as they were sworn to confidentiality. It was a feeble comfort to Harry, who would have rather not gone at all. But he had promised Benjamin he would try, and Iain had told him it had really helped him, so he would soldier on and play along.

For the time being, however, he had to decide what to answer to Ron and Hermione.

By the time he was done with his letters, it was time for dinner and the weekly movie night. Once per week, they all piled up into the recreational room and watched a movie that they had voted upon during the previous days. That night they were watching the second Star Wars, as Joe had realised that neither Harry nor Mary had seen the series and had immediately campaigned to fill this unacceptable -according to him- gap. Harry had quite enjoyed the first movie and was glad he could now understand the _padawans_ references the other often made when they talked to him or one of the other two children.

Movie night also meant popcorn and candies, something that always had Harry excited as he had grown up watching Dudley gorge himself on sweets without being able to taste himself. The only thing he regretted was the absence of Wizarding candies because Chocolate Frogs were the absolute best. He had tried to negotiate with Muhammad so he would bring back some from his trips to France but to no avail for the time.

Laying on his stomach on a yoga mat with Fergus and Joe, passing a bucket of popcorn back and forth while the opening credits went by on the screen, Harry forgot about his frustrations of the day and settled in for a perfect night with his team.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

Harry burst out laughing. His transfiguration of rabbits into slippers might not have been very successful but Fergus's just was hilarious. His slippers were perfect, some fluffy white things that looked warm and comfortable, except for the ostentatious rabbit ears that they still sported.

"Oh, please, keep them that way, you'll be at the high of fashion."

"Shut up, you! At least mine's not moving anymore."

Harry's laughter trickled down to chuckles and he looked down at his work. Indeed, his shoes were apparently trying to jump all over the place, which, since they did not have any legs, gave a ridiculous result. It got him started again.

"Boys, quiet down, please."

Sheepish, Harry and Fergus lowered their voice at Brenda's admonition. She was their tutor for the afternoon and she had them working on their transfiguration skills. Usually, the two boys did not train together as Fergus was far more advanced than Harry, but Transfiguration was by far his weak point so he was not too far ahead on the topic.

"Cancel your spells and try again. Harry, your pronunciation is wrong, the accent is on the stu. Fergus, don't forget to visualise the transformation of the entire animal, not just its main body. Again!"

Harry threw himself into the task, still on cloud nine at being able to perform magic, moreover without a wand. After nearly a week of working on finding his magical core and the way his power travelled through the implant, he had finally graduated to simple spells. The older Mary and Brenda had already run him through everything that he had learnt during his year at Hogwarts and they had moved on to spells a bit more advanced. They were more or less following the Hogwarts curriculum, from Harry's comparison with Hermione's letters, except that Care of Magical Creatures was reduced to the theory and they did not study History of Magic, Potions or Astronomy. Benjamin had told him that they did not have the infrastructure for it at the compound, but that they had built a lab and a telescope in the summer house they usually spent their holidays in, so he would be able to practice then. Harry had been really excited to know that the unit had a holiday home, in the moors of Scotland, a gift from a well-off ex-member.

As it was, Harry was quickly catching up with his friends in Hogwarts as he was only studying three subjects out of those taught at Hogwarts and he had one-to-one tuition. Even if he was working on his Muggle schoolwork in the morning, it was obvious that being homeschooled in those conditions did wonder for his scholarly performance.

As he was distracted, his rabbit escaped and he had to chase after him all over the room, weaving between the spells cast by the others. A few of the team was missing, off to practice a series of dangerous spells in the countryside. In particular, they had found mention of a fire spell that was famous for being able to get rid of even the most tenacious beings, including those that appeared to resist more traditional methods like the Killing Curse. The Lieutenant had decided that, despite the risk inherent to the spell, it was worth getting part of the unit to master it if it could get rid of Voldemort.

When Harry finally managed to herd his rabbit back to his corner of the room, Fergus was looking at his complete transfiguration gleefully. Harry put his hand on his rabbit, concentrated on the feel of his magic inside him and pushed this power into his hand, saying the incantation. The rabbit morphed in a pair of slippers each decorated with half a rabbit face. The semi-nose of the weird creations was moving as if sniffing the air. Harry sighed and inverted his spell to try again.

Later that day, he received a letter from Hermione. Harry was immediately on the lookout as her messages always arrived with Ron's, but this time there was only one letter.

Worried, he hurried to the dorm for some privacy and opened up the envelope. His surprise continued as he extracted a sheet of regular paper instead of the parchment the Wizarding World favoured.

The reason for this change was explained as soon as he read Hermione's words. There had been a petrified student, most probably by the monster of the Chamber of Secrets, Colin Creevey, a First Year Gryffindor that Harry had therefore never met. Dumbledore had been trying to hush the affair but a missing pupil could not go unnoticed for long so the student body had finally learnt about him. The day after she had written home with the news, her parents had shown up at Hogwarts to collect her. It had been quite a mess, from her accounts, because as Muggles they could not see the school, but Hagrid had finally noticed them going back and forth in front of the gates and had fetched the Headmaster. Hermione had tried to convince Ron to write home as well but he had been hearing none it of, so Harry guessed that the Weasley children were probably still at school, unless Percy had managed to overcome his blind respect for authority and Professor Dumbledore and warned his parents about what was happening. In any case, Hermione thought that many parents would take their kids away from school as long as the threat was not dealt with. Harry certainly hoped so. As Benjamin has been trying to impart to him, growing up in a magical world did not mean that one had to accept all and every dangerous thing simply because it had to do with magic.

"Alright folks, I have big news to share. Settle down."

The few stragglers plopped down on the ground and the group fell silent to listen to what Benjamin had to say. It was the first day in December and they were having their usual daily regroup, after an intense day of training.

"The lead from Germany turned out to be the real thing. Colin just called me and they have found the same traces of magic as in Albania. Less than a week old, so we're getting really close. Plus we have an idea of the speed at which it's travelling now so it will narrow down our search perimeter."

The team cheered. They had been looking for Voldemort for more than two months and apart from a few false leads, they had been getting nowhere.

"We are not taking any chance with this. Muhammad, Brenda and Colin are surveying the area but have been ordered not to make contact. I want everyone who has mastered the Fiendfyre to suit up for a stay in the Black Forest, we'll be Flooing over there tomorrow. Michelle will be in charge while I'm gone. The plan is to comb the zone until we find this wraith, ascertain whether it is Voldemort and promptly dispose of it."

"How are we going to make sure that it's Voldemort? It's not like we can take blood from it to check, or anything, since we are basically looking for a ghost."

Michelle spoke up to answer.

"I'll be teaching you a spell that compares magical signatures. We have been able to acquire objects from Godric's Hollow -sorry Harry- that bear his magical signature, you'll each get a fragment. The spell is quite simple, you should be able to learn it in our hour or less."

"What if it's not him?"

"Get rid of it all the same. That amount of Dark magic won't do anyone any good.

We'll be searching the area in pairs. I don't want anyone thinking of heroics and facing the wraith alone, okay?"

All the ones who would be leaving nodded. Behind him, Harry heard Fergus grumble about it always being the same people that got to live the exciting things but for once, Harry disagreed with him. He was quite happy to stay warm and safe on this one. There was no way he was going to volunteer for another confrontation with the terrifying half-dead wizard. Plus, his psychologist and Benjamin were starting to make an effect as they kept repeating to it was not his role to save the day if the adults could not -or would not as had been the case during his First Year.

As people started talking among themselves, the wards they had installed over the compound chimed, announcing that an unauthorised wizard was in the vicinity. Before Benjamin had time to question them on whether they knew who it might be, the phone in his office rang. He sprinted out of the room and returned just a minute later.

"Albus Dumbledore is at the gate. They are sending him in. Go prepare while I deal with him. Harry, just in case it concerns you, can you please stay in the break room so I don't have to look for you everywhere?"

Harry followed the Lieutenant out of the room and they split in the hallway. The break room was not Harry's favourite place in the building, as it was quite bare and had nothing to entertain oneself with, but it was closest to Benjamin's office. Figuring that he should take advantage of his time there, Harry took out of English notebook and started reviewing his lesson on narrative forms.

He was distracted by raising voices coming from the office next door. Whatever had Professor Dumbledore visiting them, it was not sitting well with Benjamin apparently.

After a few minutes of yelling, the door was slammed opened and Harry hearded his former Headmaster stride out. Curious, the boy waited for Benjamin to collect him, which happened not a minute after the old wizard had left.

"Harry, my office?"

Harry nearly whistled under his breath. It took a lot to anger the Lieutenant like this! However, not wanting to annoy the man further, he simply followed without a word and settled down into one of the visitors chairs.

"The nerve of that man! There has been a new attack yesterday, similar to what your friend reported before. A student and a ghost petrified. The old coot came to demand, to demand, that I let you go back to Hogwarts so you could take care of the problem. Said he understood that it was much to ask a twelve-year-old but that he did not have a choice as only a Parseltongue can access the Chamber of Secrets. And it would not even have been a shot, in-and-out kind of mission. No, Mister Dumbledore doesn't want to upset the families of his students so he keeps pretending everything is alright. Which means you would have had to pretend the same and only look for the Chamber during your free time, without the supervision of professors. His excuse was that you wouldn't have had to actually enter the Chamber, God bless whatever is left from this man's common sense."

Benjamin's rant continued on for a time before he stopped and looked at Harry with a sheepish smile.

"Sorry, I know none of this is your fault. I wouldn't even bother you with it but I believe you have a right to know the Wizarding World's crazy plans for you, what with your defeater-of-Dark-Lords status."

"I only defeated one, you know, and I don't even remember how," Harry joked.

"Try telling those idiots who think that you are going to solve all the world's problems single-handedly... Anyway, I have to prepare for our excursion, so you're free to go."

Harry left the room and joined Mary and Fergus in the recreational room for a game of Super Mario Bros. Around them, the atmosphere was tense as the adults who would remain behind discussed the trip to find and kill Voldemort.

"No, no, no! Harry, you need to focus, you'll get nowhere by just saying the words and hoping for something to happen. I know you are distracted, but you are the one who asked not to skip today's training, so put some effort into it please."

Terrence was getting frustrated at Harry lack of results. He was trying to teach him the Bubble Charm, a harmless but entertaining spell that produced floating bubbles of soap. It was a variant of the spell using for dishwashing that had no real purpose except to ease students into the more difficult household version. It was supposed to be one of the easiest Charms around, but Harry was struggling to concentrate enough to guide his magic into the implant. The adults had told him that it would become like a second nature in time, but for the moment he still had to focus on the process to perform any kind of magic.

The reason why Harry was so distracted was the news they had gotten that morning about the part of the team that was looking for Voldemort in Germany. After nearly two weeks of unfruitfully scanning the area, they had finally stumbled upon the wraith. It was a success, in a way, but things had not gone to plan. Brenda and Lennox had managed to ascertain that it was indeed Voldemort using the spell Michelle had found in the depths of the French library but what was left of the Dark wizard had not taken to kindly to it. He had attacked them viciously, trying to tear down their mental shields in order to possess one of them. Luckily, they had both managed to resist but Brenda was suffering from magical exhaustion and Lennox had been rendered catatonic by the fight. Michelle had relayed Benjamin's message that the German Healers were quite confident he would wake up of a few days and be none the worse for wear, but the group was still understandably shaken. Michelle had cancelled training for the day but Harry had insisted that he wanted to do something instead of just waiting for news, so Terrence had offered to work him through a new charm.

"I'm sorry. I'm trying, it's just..."

"Yes, I know, I'm sorry too for yelling at you. We're all on edge but that's not an excuse. Do you want to continue trying?"

Harry considered the question before shaking his head. It was no use getting frustrated over something as unimportant as the Bubble Charm and it was obviously not working as a distraction. They joined the rest of the group who were lazing around in the recreational room. A few were playing cards while others were negotiating between watching TV and launching the game console. Michelle was in a deep talk with Fergus over yoga and Mohammed was laying down on the floor, watching the ceiling listlessly. The restless energy circulating around the room betrayed that this was not a typical relaxed afternoon.

They had to wait for four more days after the initial encounter between Voldemort and the Phantom Unit team-members before Benjamin called with more news. This time, Michelle came back to the recreational room looking both relieved and excited.

"They did it! The Lieutenant, Colin and Lisa managed to corner him and burn him to a crisp. And when they got back to the hotel they had a message waiting for them saying 'Nox was awake and okay. Their guess is that Voldemort must have had some effect on him because from their calculations, he woke up pretty much at the moment when they ended Voldemort's pseudo-life. Anyway, they're all coming back with the next flight, we'll get the full story then."

The room exploded in applause as everyone shared her relief. Harry sat there, a bit shocked. The Dark wizard who had killed his parents and tried to kill him twice was dead. That was something that did not happen every day. Plus, in some corner of himself, he had believed the prophecy and that he would have to kill Voldemort. It was a huge comfort to know that this task had been taken care off and that Dumbledore had been wrong. He had to ask:

"How do we know for sure that he is not coming back this time?"

"I cannot give you absolute guarantees, Harry, but nothing has been known to survive Fiendfyre to this day. The Killing Curse is only effective on fully alive beings, so maybe that's how he managed to outlive it, or maybe it was because of the complex circumstances that made the spell rebound on you -it might have lost some of its power then. But Fiendfyre... You've not witnessed it, but it devours everything."

Partially reassured, Harry stood up with the others when Fergus suggested a raid on the closest burger joint to celebrate. It was not often that the left the compound apart from their yearly holiday, but it seemed warranted in this case. Laughing and punching each other's shoulder, they piled up in a couple of jeeps and were soon off to the nearest town.

"...of course, it's difficult to see through the flames of the spell, but it was obvious something was happening. Instead of burning in a few seconds as expected, it took a full couple of minutes before he died and we were able to put the fire out. During that time something very strange happened: some kind of ghostly fragments flew from the sky to him at a delirious speed, so fast that we were barely able to see them. We counted between four and seven, we're not sure, but every time one of them joined his wraith body, he screamed even louder. After the last one arrived it was over in second, so our hypothesis was that he was somehow split into several parts and could not die into they were reunited, so the Fiendfyre forced that. We'll be looking into it, and maybe asking Albus Dumbledore for his opinion."

Benjamin had been relating to the part of the group stayed in England how the end of their mission in Germany had gone. The description of the pieces of ghost-like matter flowing into Voldemort rang a bell for Harry.

"Benjamin?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"I think I know where one of the fragments was coming from... My friend Ron wrote to me yesterday, and something really strange had happened in Hogwarts pretty much at the same time as you were killing Voldemort ... His sister fell to the ground screaming and then unconscious, in the middle of a lesson, and some small ghost-like thing jumped out of her bag and sped up away from the castle. Sounds like it might be linked, even if I can't imagine what a piece of Voldemort could have been doing in Ginny's bag..."

"That's an interesting coincidence indeed. Do you have any more information?"

"Yes, Ron says that she was really sad when she regained consciousness because her diary, which had been in her bag at the time, was ruined with ink spilt all over the pages, every page, like it was a bad joke, except no one would risk the wrath of Madam Pomfrey to play that sort of joke on someone in the Hospital Wing. And when he said they'd just buy her another, she answered that they wouldn't find one that could talk back to her. I think Ron wrote to me because he knows that there's something wrong with a speaking diary but he's afraid to tell his parents."

"There is something very wrong with a book that can talk back, indeed. Usually, only Dark magic books can have any form of sentience. I guess that means I'll have to pay a visit to Hogwarts and its Headmaster..."

Harry dared ask:

"Can I come with you? I'd like to see Ron..."

"We'll see. I wouldn't mind, but it might give Dumbledore ideas..."

"I want to go too!"

"Let's talk about it later, Mary, okay. For now, anyone has questions on what happened in Germany?"

In the end, Harry was allowed to accompany Benjamin to Hogwarts. Mary -the younger one- had been devastated to have to stay at the compound but Benjamin had not wanted to risk Dumbledore learning that they had a member not yet of Hogwarts age. There was already the risk that she might get a Hogwarts letter when her time came, there was no need to force destiny's hand.

Harry spent the visit enjoying himself heartily with Ron, Neville, Seamus and Dean. He missed Hermione's presence but it was already surprising that no one else had been withdrawn from Hogwarts with the two additional petrifications which had occurred the week before. They played chess and Exploding Snap and took a walk around the lake, Ron relating the last months' events to Harry and asking many questions on what life as a Muggle was like. It was as if Ron had not realised before that Harry had been Muggle-raised but his curiosity was now catching on with him.

Finally, a Prefect came to fetch Harry in the Common Room and he joined Benjamin and Professor Dumbledore in the Entrance Hall. He felt a bit nostalgic of his time at Hogwarts but he did not miss it as furiously as before. When the Headmaster tried, once again, to convince him to stay, he was not torn anymore and answered decisively that he prefered to live with the Phantom Unit, where no one expected him to be anything more than a child -he of course did not say that last part aloud.

In the car, the Lieutenant explained that Dumbledore had shared a lot of information with him on the condition that he did not transmit it to anyone else than the future head of the unit. He had agreed because the information had been Dark in nature and it was not something he wished to burden his teammates with. However, he could tell them that the conclusion he and the Headmaster had reached was that Voldemort was well and truly dead this time and that Ginny Weasley might have been possessed by a piece of Voldemort's soul for part of the last few months, though how she had come into owning the diary which had been the vector of the possession remained to be seen. She had also probably been the one to open the Chamber of Secrets, unbeknownst to her, so the school was once again safe, or as safe as it could be with Dumbledore at its head.

With this heavy weight lifted from his shoulder, Harry was able to relax fully into his life in the Panther Unit. He had homework to do, spells to master, Mary and Fergus to beat at Super Mario Bross and a Christmas at the Weasleys on the horizon. All in all, life was good when you were called Harry Potter.


End file.
